Focusing on the drastic global inequalities when it comes to food security, Alec Hogg spoke to Shenggen Fan, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute, about current global standards, and the progress that has been made with regards to malnutrition and famine internationally. How far has the world come and how far must it go before eradicating the challenges that cause starvation and obesity alike? – LF
ALEC HOGG: Professor Shenggen Fan is the Director-General of the International Food Policy Research Institute. You’ve been coming here for five years. This weather yesterday and today…
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: It has been the warmest in the last five years.
ALEC HOGG: From your perspective, you’re a nutritionist. We have big debates going on in South Africa at the moment, about what the right nutrition is. You look after people who are malnourished or try to help them to get better nourished. Just give us some insight into the kind of diet you would recommend.
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: Well actually, I’m an economist. However, I’m a converted half-nutritionist because in my institute, there are more than 25 nutritionists, who have really transformed our institute to combine economics and agricultural production environment with good food security and nutrition. A good diet is a balanced diet. No matter what you eat, you should have a good proportion of carb and proteins (whether animal or plant) as well as fat. A more balanced diet is essential for everybody to have a very healthy, productive life.
ALEC HOGG: Have you had much success by implementing that kind of diet in areas of the world where people are starving?
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: Well, we have seen some successes in many emerging economies, such as China and India where the small smallholders in that agriculture have produced more and better food for many poor and hungry people. The Green Revolution in the seventies and later on, the whole economic reform have moved many poor and hungry people out, so that was a key success. In Brazil, the social protection programs can really link the protection – the cash transfer – to people’s nutrition and health…those have always succeeded. The best successful stories are from Thailand where you combine all these approaches together – agriculture there, nutrition-specific interventions, as well as social protection. Coming to Africa, Africa has also made tremendous progress in places such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Ghana in cutting down hunger and malnutrition. People’s diets are getting better. That’s why hunger has never come down, but the tremendous challenges remain.
ALEC HOGG: It must be strange for you, coming to the WEF where you see quite a few people who have had more than their fair share of food, who have not missed too many lunches. The food that’s distributed here is of a very high quality and very expensive, as we know, in Switzerland. Do you feel just a little resentful?
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: That’s right. I think the whole world has become more divided. You’ll see the people who have enough to eat/good food to eat or even over-nutrition. On the other hand, you still see more than 800-million people do not have enough to eat and more importantly, more than two billion people do not eat the right things. They lack micronutrients such as iron, zinc, and Vitamin A in their diet. What they do is they eat a lot of carbs without essential ingredients to have a very healthy, productive life.
ALEC HOGG: And that just makes them fatter and fatter. From your perspective, people forget it wasn’t too long ago, that China had famines where many people died of hunger.
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: That’s indeed the case. In 1958, many Chinese died because of hunger and malnutrition. Bad policy and extreme weather events all caused that hunger and famine. There’s a huge lesson for us to learn. I was born right after that Great Famine, so it’s a huge lesson for us and obviously, China has cut down the malnutrition and hunger in a big way.
ALEC HOGG: Are people still hungry in China?
PROF. SHENGGEN FAN: Well, there are still many people hungry, in China. Even more than 100-million people still, do not have enough to eat so this is very ironic. Despite the emerging economy… It’s a successful country/successful story, but more needs to be done – a more balanced diet to make sure that every child in China has well-balanced and nutritious food. On the other hand, China has also seen an increasing trend of obesity and overweight, so that needs to be cut down.
ALEC HOGG: What a world we seem to be living in. Seem to be? We are living in, with those two different poles: either too fat or too malnourished. That was Professor Shenggen Fan, who runs the International Food Policy Research Institute.
