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Since 2009, the world has been stuck

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on a single narrative around
a coming global food crisis,

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and what we need to do to avoid it.

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How do we feed
nine billion people by 2050?

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Every conference, podcast,
and dialogue around global food security

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starts with this question

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and goes on to answer it

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by saying we need to produce
70 percent more food.

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The 2050 narrative started to evolve

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shortly after global food prices

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hit all-time highs in 2008.

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People were suffering and struggling,

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governments and world leaders

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needed to show us
that they were paying attention

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and were working to solve it.

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The thing is, 2050
is so far into the future

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that we can't even relate to it,

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and more importantly,

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if we keep doing what we're doing,

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it's going to hit us
a lot sooner than that.

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I believe we need to ask
a different question.

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The answer to that question

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needs to be framed differently.

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If we can reframe the old narrative

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and replace it with new numbers

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that tell us a more complete pictures,

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numbers that everyone can understand

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and relate to,

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we can avoid the crisis altogether.

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I was a commodities trader
in my past life,

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and one of the things
that I learned trading

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is that every market has a tipping point,

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the point at which
change occurs so rapidly

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that it impacts the world

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and things change forever.

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Think of the last financial crisis,

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or the dot com crash.

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So here's my concern.

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We could have a tipping point

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in global food and agriculture

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if surging demand

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surpasses the agricultural system's
structural capacity to produce food.

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This means at this point supply
can no longer keep up with demand

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despite exploding prices,

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unless we can commit
to some type of structural change.

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This time around,

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it won't be about stock markets and money.

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It's about people.

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People could starve

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and governments may fall.

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This question of at what point
does supply struggle

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to keep up with surging demand

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is one that started off as an interest
for me while I was trading

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and became an absolute obsession.

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It went from interest to obsession

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when I realized through my research
how broken the system was,

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and how very little data was being used
to make such critical decisions.

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That's the point I decided to walk away
from a career on Wall Street

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and start an entrepreneurial journey

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to start Gro Intelligence.

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At Gro, we focus on bringing this data

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and doing the work to make it actionable,

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to empower decision-makers at every level.

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But doing this work,

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we also realized that the world,

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not just world leaders,

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but businesses and citizens
like every single person in this room,

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lacked an actionable guide

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on how we can avoid a coming
global food security crisis.

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And so we built a model,

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leveraging the petabytes
of data we sit on,

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and we solved for the tipping point.

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Now, no one knows
we've been working on this problem,

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and this is the first time

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that I'm sharing what we discovered.

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We discovered that the tipping point

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is actually a decade from now.

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We discovered that the world

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will be short 214 trillion calories

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by 2027.

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The world is not in a position
to fill this gap.

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Now, you'll notice

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that the way I'm framing this
is different from how I started,

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and that's intentional, because
until now, this problem

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has been quantified using mass:

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think kilograms, tons, hectograms,

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whatever your unit of choice is in mass.

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Why do we talk about food
in terms of weight?

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Because it's easy.

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We can look at a photograph
and determine tonnage on a ship

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by using a simple pocket calculator.

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We can weigh trucks,
airplanes and oxcarts.

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But what we care about
in food is nutritional value.

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Not all foods are created equal,

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even if they weigh the same.

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This I learned firsthand

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when I moved from Ethiopia
to the US for university.

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Upon my return back home,

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my father, who was so excited to see me,

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greeted me by asking why I was fat.

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Now, turns out that eating

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approximately the same amount of food
as I did in Ethiopia, but in America,

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had actually lent
a certain fullness to my figure.

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This is why we should care about calories,

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not about mass.

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It is calories which sustain us.

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So 214 trillion calories
is a very large number,

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and not even the most dedicated of us

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think in the hundreds
of trillions of calories.

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So let me break this down differently.

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An alternative way to think about this

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is to think about it in Big Macs.

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214 trillion calories.

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A single Big Mac has 563 calories.

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That means the world will be short
379 billion Big Macs in 2027.

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That is more Big Macs
than McDonald's has ever produced.

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So how did we get
to these numbers in the first place?

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They're not made up.

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This map shows you

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where the world was 40 years ago.

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It shows you net calorie gaps
in every country in the world.

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Now, simply put,

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this is just calories
consumed in that country

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minus calories produced
in that same country.

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This is not a statement
on malnutrition or anything else.

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It's simply saying how many calories
are consumed in a single year

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minus how many are produced.

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Blue countries are net calorie exporters,

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or self-sufficient.

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They have some in storage for a rainy day.

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Red countries are net calorie importers.

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The deeper, the brighter the red,

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the more you're importing.

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40 years ago, such few countries
were net exporters of calories,

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I could count them with one hand.

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Most of the African continent,

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Europe, most of Asia,

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South America excluding Argentina,

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were all net importers of calories.

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And what's surprising is that China
used to actually be food self-sufficient.

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India was a big net importer of calories.

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40 years later, this is today.

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You can see the drastic transformation
that's occurred in the world.

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Brazil has emerged
as an agricultural powerhouse.

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Europe is dominant in global agriculture.

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India has actually flipped
from red to blue.

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It's become food self-sufficient.

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And China went from that light blue

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to the brightest red
that you see on this map.

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How did we get here? What happened?

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So this chart shows you India and Africa.

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Blue line is India, red line is Africa.

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How is it that two regions
that started off so similarly

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in such similar trajectories

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take such different paths?

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India had a green revolution.

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Not a single African country
had a green revolution.

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The net outcome?

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India is food self-sufficient

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and in the past decade has actually
been exporting calories.

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The African continent now imports
over 300 trillion calories a year.

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Then we add China, the green line.

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Remember the switch
from the blue to the bright red?

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What happened, and when did it happen?

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China seemed to be
on a very similar path to India

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until the start of the 21st century,

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where it suddenly flipped.

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A young and growing population

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combined with significant economic growth

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made its mark with a big bang,

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and no one in the markets saw it coming.

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This flip was everything
to global agricultural markets.

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Luckily now, South America

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was starting to boom
at the same time as China's rise,

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and so therefore, supply and demand
were still somewhat balanced.

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So the question becomes,

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where do we go from here?

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Oddly enough,

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it's not a new story,

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except this time
it's not just a story of China.

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It's a continuation of China,

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an amplification of Africa,

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and a paradigm shift in India.

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By 2023, Africa's population
is forecasted to overtake that

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of India's and China's.

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By 2023, these three regions combined

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will make up over half
the world's population.

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This crossover point starts to present
really interesting challenges

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for global food security,

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and a few years later,
we're hit hard with that reality.

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What does the world look like in 10 years?

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So far, as I mentioned,
India has been food self-sufficient.

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Most forecasters predict
that this will continue.

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We disagree.

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India will soon become
a net importer of calories.

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This will be driven both by the fact
that demand is growing

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from a population growth standpoint
plus economic growth.

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It will be driven by both.

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And even if you have
optimistic assumptions

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around production growth,

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it will make that slight flip.

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That slight flip can have
huge implications.

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Next, Africa will continue
to be a net importer of calories,

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again driven by population growth
and economic growth.

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This is again assuming optimistic
production growth assumptions.

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Then China,

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where population is flattening out,

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calorie consumption will explode

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because the types of calories consumed

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are also starting to be
higher calorie content foods.

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And so therefore,

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these three regions combined

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start to present a really interesting
challenge for the world.

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Until now, countries with calorie deficits

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have been able to meet these deficits

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from importing from surplus regions.

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By surplus regions, I'm talking about

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North America, South America and Europe.

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This line chart over here shows you

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the growth and the projected growth
over the next decade of production

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from North America,
South America and Europe.

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What it doesn't show you

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is that most of this growth is actually
going to come from South America,

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and most of this growth

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is going to come at the huge cost

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of deforestation.

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And so when you look at
the combined demand increase

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coming from India, China
and the African continent,

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and look at it versus the combined
increase in production coming from India,

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China, the African continent,
North America, South America and Europe,

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you are left with
a 214 trillion calorie deficit,

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one we can't produce.

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And this, by the way, is actually assuming
we take all the extra calories

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produced in North America,
South America and Europe

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and export them solely
to India, China and Africa.

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What I just presented to you
is a vision of an impossible world.

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We can do something to change that.

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We can change consumption patterns,

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we can reduce food waste,

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or we can make a bold commitment

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to increasing yields exponentially.

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Now I'm not going to go into discussing

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changing consumption patterns
or reducing food waste,

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because those conversations have been
going on for some time now.

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Nothing has happened.

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Nothing has happened

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because those arguments

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ask the surplus regions
to change their behavior

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on behalf of deficit regions.

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Waiting for others
to change their behavior

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on your behalf for your survival

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is a terrible idea.

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It's unproductive.

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So I'd like to suggest an alternative

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that comes from the red regions.

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China, India, Africa.

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China is constrained in terms
of how much more land it actually has

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available for agriculture,

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and it has massive water
resource availability issues.

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So the answer really lies
in India and in Africa.

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India has some upside in terms
of potential yield increases.

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Now this is the gap
between its current yield

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and the theoretical
maximum yield it can achieve.

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It has some unfarmed
arable land remaining, but not much,

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India is quite land constrained.

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Now the African continent,
on the other hand,

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has vast amounts of arable land remaining

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and significant
upside potential in yields.

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Somewhat simplified picture here,

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but if you look at sub-Saharan
African yields in corn today,

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they are where North American
yields were in 1940.

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We don't have 70-plus years
to figure this out,

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so it means we need to try something new

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and we need to try something different.

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The solution starts with reforms.

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We need to reform and commercialize

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the agricultural industries in Africa

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00:14:48,742 --> 00:14:50,557
and in India.

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00:14:50,557 --> 00:14:52,416
Now, by commercialization,

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commercialization is not about
commercial farming alone.

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Commercialization is about leveraging data

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to craft better policies,

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to improve infrastructure,

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to lower the transportation costs,

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and to completely reform
banking and insurance industries.

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Commercialization is about
taking agriculture

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from too risky an endeavor
to one where fortunes can be made.

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Commercialization
is not about just farmers.

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00:15:19,124 --> 00:15:24,660
Commercialization is about
the entire agricultural system.

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00:15:24,660 --> 00:15:28,979
But commercialization
also means confronting the fact

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00:15:28,979 --> 00:15:32,537
that we can no longer place
the burden of growth

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00:15:32,537 --> 00:15:36,417
on small-scale farmers alone,

293
00:15:36,417 --> 00:15:42,080
and accepting that commercial farms
and the introduction of commercial farms

294
00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:44,841
could provide certain economies of scale

295
00:15:44,841 --> 00:15:48,518
that even small-scale
farmers can leverage.

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It is not about small-scale farming
or commercial agriculture,

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00:15:52,398 --> 00:15:53,920
or big agriculture.

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00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:59,321
We can create the first successful models
of the coexistence and success

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00:15:59,321 --> 00:16:03,181
of small-scale farming alongside
commercial agriculture.

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00:16:03,181 --> 00:16:06,621
This is because, for the first time ever,

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the most critical tool
for success in the industry --

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00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:11,567
data and knowledge --

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00:16:11,567 --> 00:16:14,923
is becoming cheaper by the day.

304
00:16:14,923 --> 00:16:18,244
And very soon, it won't matter
how much money you have

305
00:16:18,244 --> 00:16:19,948
or how big you are

306
00:16:19,948 --> 00:16:24,172
to make optimal decisions
and maximize probability of success

307
00:16:24,172 --> 00:16:27,652
in reaching your intended goal.

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00:16:27,652 --> 00:16:31,934
Companies like Gro are working really,
really hard to make this a reality.

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So if we can commit
to this new, bold initiative,

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00:16:36,450 --> 00:16:38,629
to this new, bold change,

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00:16:38,629 --> 00:16:42,360
not only can we solve
the 214 trillion gap

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00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:43,925
that I talked about,

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00:16:43,925 --> 00:16:47,180
but we can actually set the world
on a whole new path.

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India can remain food self-sufficient,

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00:16:51,350 --> 00:16:53,080
and Africa can emerge

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00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:57,503
as the world's next dark blue region.

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The new question is,

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how do we produce

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00:17:01,485 --> 00:17:03,930
214 trillion calories

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00:17:03,930 --> 00:17:09,081
to feed 8.3 billion people by 2027?

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00:17:09,081 --> 00:17:11,217
We have the solution.

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00:17:11,217 --> 00:17:13,715
We just need to act on it.

323
00:17:13,715 --> 00:17:15,588
Thank you.

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(Applause)