Podcast: UNGA Decoded #2 — José Andrés on food as national security

Listen to "José Andrés on food as national security" on Spreaker.

Since José Andrés founded World Central Kitchen in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the James Beard Award-winning chef has been challenging the traditional model of shipping in food aid from overseas in emergency situations. The nonprofit focuses on mobilizing grassroots networks of cooks and food producers, with the aim of creating a more sustainable local food system immediately after and beyond a disaster.

Reporter Teresa Welsh sits down with Andrés, who also runs restaurants in Washington, D.C., and around the United States, to discuss World Central Kitchen’s model, how it challenges traditional humanitarian food aid, and what food means to people in their moments of greatest need.

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TRANSCRIPT

Michael Igoe

Welcome to UNGA Decoded. I'm Michael Igoe, senior reporter at Devex. For the next couple of weeks, my colleagues and I are going to bring you inside the biggest global development gathering of the year. Skip the travel, the traffic, and the security lines, and join us for candid conversations with people at the leading edge of global development, global health, and humanitarian assistance. This is UNGA Decoded.

José Andrés

The number of people that are hungry in the world, in a world that is producing more food than food we need, is just staggering. And still we don't put enough resources to deliver on simple promises.

Michael Igoe

Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that in the wake of a devastating earthquake, or a hurricane or in the midst of a global food crisis, the person best able to appreciate the critical, comforting significance of food is not always a politician or policy expert, but in fact, sometimes, a chef. Since José Andrés founded World Central Kitchen in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, his organization has become a central fixture in humanitarian relief efforts around the world, from Puerto Rico to Houston to Ukraine. World Central Kitchen focuses on mobilizing grassroots networks of cooks and food producers, instead of shipping in sacks of food aid from overseas. In challenging some of those traditional models, Andrés has created a little bit of friction with the food aid establishment. My colleague Teresa Welsh sat down with José at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York for a fascinating conversation about World Central Kitchen, but also about a totally different way of thinking about what food means to people in their moments of greatest need.

Teresa Welsh  

José Andrés, thanks so much for being with us. We're here at the U.N. General Assembly, finally back in full force after a long couple of pandemic years. You do a lot of work with emergency food assistance, humanitarian work. What are you looking for from world leaders this week? What kind of commitments do you want to be made?

José Andrés 

One of the issues with world leaders is that they come and go. And what never comes and goes are institutions. U.N., all the agencies within U.N., governments. What I will tell the world leaders is that whatever they create has to be the legacy of systems, that once they are not in power anymore, they will keep moving on for in the future. And with that, I have a feeling like because leadership sometimes — and that's a good thing in democracy — only keeps you in power four or eight years, in the case of the States. I think we need to start having very clear what are the promises, and what are the outcomes of those promises, in space and time. I was very young when I heard the U.N., UNICEF, claiming that by the year 2000, we will be ending childhood hunger in the world. It's okay to be bold, and claiming the impossible, even I do believe it is possible. But I think one of the things institutions, governments, once and for all have to do, if not, people are going to be losing faith in the institutions and in the democratic systems —

Teresa Welsh

That's a huge problem right now.

José Andrés 

— Is that the claims and achievements are never aligned. And what is worse, even in the failures, we have institutions and people claiming what they never deliver. Therefore, I think this is a problem. I have a feeling that we've been claiming that we will be teaching African countries and helping African farmers to be self-sufficient, self-resilient, that Africa will be able to feed itself and will be a net exporter of food. We've seen big organizations claiming that these millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, if not billions, over the last 20 years on paper is invested in Africa to achieve that, but now we have a war. And if it’s not for the tonnes and tonnes of grain that Ukraine produces, Africa is not gonna be able in some parts to be feeding themselves. So the issue is where that money went over the last 10, 20 years to make Africa more self-resilient. Because right now, it's an open wound that is for everybody to see that we have many countries that they are not able to feed themselves, therefore creating nightmares for the people living in those countries. And this is what I would ask them. Are we are claiming the impossible and you're not putting any real investment to make that happen? Or we're gonna try to claim what is possible in real time and put all the resources to achieve success. I have a feeling that there’s too many promises, that they are very easy to throw in the air, but that we don't have the systems to really follow on those promises and see the outcomes in short, mid and long term. And I think this is fundamentally one of the big problems we have. Maybe percentage wise is less hunger in the world, as Bill Gates will say, but the number of people who are hungry in the world, in a world that is producing more food than food we need, is just staggering. And still we don't put enough resources to deliver on simple promises. To me, feeding everybody on planet Earth is a fairly simple promise to achieve. That we have in America, the richest country in the history of mankind, people that go to bed hungry, and that they work two, three jobs and still they don't seem to be able to make it, is showing you that we have some structural problems that should be achieved with political will, putting smart bills and smart ideas in the service of empowering people. But then it's very hard for me to believe that, we cannot fix problems in many cities in America, how are we going to be solving problems in countries we don't even socially understand? So that's why it's so important we start fixing problems in America soon, especially in things like food, that is the minimum thing everybody should be getting.

Teresa Welsh

Absolutely. And you just laid out so many problems that we see in the food system, right? You know, you mentioned the issue that we're seeing in Ukraine, because the grain production in Ukraine is disrupted and exports are disrupted, Africa is affected. And that shows one of the fundamental disconnects in our food system is you have parts of the world that have not been able to be self-sufficient when it comes to food production.

José Andrés 

For many reasons, actually — and some countries are, but Africa as a whole should be a super net exporter of food, because it should be an agricultural paradise. Ukraine over centuries has been, as everybody has said, very rich land. If you visit Ukraine you'll see some of the most fertile land you can see anywhere in the world. So it makes a lot of sense that Ukraine is a net exporter. But if we start not analyzing the problems in a 360, three-dimensional lens, in the process of trying to solve some problems, we create even bigger problems and more than the ones we're trying to solve. If we go to a country that is a net exporter of food, like the United States, with very good systems of mass producing grain and export around the world, and because we have all these extra, overproduction, that through Farm Bills, we are engaging with buying the extra production that our farmers have. So when there is a crisis, there is an emergency through USAID, America exports that extra food to feed those countries in need. We go back to 2010, Haiti, we gave so much food for free. We did so much good that in the process we forgot to do smart good. By giving so much rice for free, so much grain for free, America showed up and helped the Haitian people. But in the problem, we put thousands of Haitian farmers out of business, because nobody was spending money to buy from those farmers. Those farmers ended up in Port-au-Prince adding more pressure to the pressure that already that city had, with all the people that lost their homes. We created migration inside Haiti because people were receiving free food. When the international aid and American aid stopped coming, we left Haiti with rice prices even more expensive than before the earthquake happened, with not enough production of rice now to feed themselves, with a lot of people that lost their jobs. And then we go 13 years later in Texas in 2022, 2023. And we saw all these Haitians under a bridge in Texas. If you connect the dots, many of those people were farmers that lost their jobs, that moved into Latin America, that they tried to find a place to belong until they arrived to the border, trying to come to a place that they could take care of their families. You see, this long story I'm giving you is part of sometimes the way international aid is being provided that solves the short term problems, they do good, but they don't do smart good. And in the length of the problem going five, 10 years later, creates more instability than the stability was trying to achieve.

Teresa Welsh

I was actually in Haiti last October, almost a year ago, and was looking at the fragility of the country's food system and found exactly that, that basically, because the international aid has been so unsustainable and failed to actually support the local food system, every single time there's an emergency, it's the same pattern over and over and over again. And I interviewed an WFP official that said, “Listen, we would love to buy local rice from Haitian farmers. But when the price is so astronomically more, and you have people in emergency that need to be fed, we must feed them. We have to import it, we just have to, we cannot afford to buy it.” And then you just get into this cycle where you can't get out of it.

José Andrés 

But this is the economics that doesn't sustain themselves. Because obviously World Food Programme does what they do, USAID does what they do and World Central Kitchen we do what we do, you have to see things in a very holistic way. At the end, with all due respect, one of the biggest contributors to World Food Programme is the U.S. government. And if that's true, even, some in kind, through food, some in money, all the problems that generates, it's at the end paid by the American taxpayer by having to be dealing with all the migration that this happened in the southern border one, two, three, four, five, six years later. So, what is the difference in what you pay for grain? 50 cents? $1? $1.25? $1.50? I'm sure it looks like a lot of money when you are talking about tonnes and tonnes. But at the end to pay a little bit more to make sure that by leaving the money in that country, you're giving an option to those rural areas and those Haitians an opportunity to make it on their own and move above the hunger minimal levels, with all due respect, that it still is a smarter investment than not. When World Central Kitchen goes and manages our own kitchens, we can produce meals at a very high quality, depends on the country we are, $1.75, $2.25, $2.50. That's what you try to do. Okay, if all of a sudden, I don't cook the food ourselves with the kitchens we create, and I buy the food from a local woman that runs a local restaurant and I pay this woman, not $2.50, not $2.75. But we pay her $4.50 or $5 per meal. You say, Jose, but you're spending double the quantity of money. But take a look what's happening. I'm not only giving that women employment, she is keeping employing everyone that works in her restaurant, she keeps buying from the local farmers, local community, she gives paying salaries to everybody that works with her, she keeps paying the people doing the distribution, she keeps paying her rent, she's able to keep paying her electricity. Sure, I spend more money, but that money has a net benefit in the local economy. Multiply that now by hundreds of thousands of restaurants. Sure it is more expensive. But I'm telling you is much way cheaper by what you achieve as a whole. When we leave, we're leaving an economy that is working and functioning on its own. When we leave the emergency, nothing is perfect. There still is a lot of reconstruction ahead. But in the little things we do, we know we're leaving behind a structure that has been functioning. It’s what we did during the pandemic, 3500 restaurants. The vast majority of them, they kept in business beyond the pandemic. Why? Because we were there supporting them doing what they do. We took care of the pandemic emergency but those restaurants, we kept the system functioning.

Teresa Welsh 

And I think unfortunately that's a disconnect we just consistently have because we fail to make those connections between you know, the failed food system, people not being able to feed themselves, and Haitians showing up on the Texas border.

José Andrés 

But the World Food Programme claims that more and more and more they are trying to buy local. That is not my claim. That's a claim that they keep saying, webpage, in what they do. Well we need to make sure that those claims are aligned. I understand what you don’t have more money, you don’t have more money —

Teresa Welsh 

David Beasley is doing his best.

José Andrés 

Yeah, but it's not enough. Why? Because, I have a feeling, and I'm not David, but whoever will be the leader — I do believe that everything has to have a return on investment. It cannot be that just we all keep asking for money from governments or from foundations, or rich people. We need to start doing in a way that we say, what is the return on investment if I asked you for money? And we need to have an answer. The return on investment in private sector we know is barely on how much profit you have, at the end of the day, even you try to have a social effect in the place you operate. But for nonprofits, and big NGOs and big organizations beyond the U.N., the answer should be always the same. What is the return on investment before you are keeping people away from total hunger? And are we throwing money at the problem? Or are we finding the smartest ways to invest in the solution? I do believe we can do better. In the process of feeding the people we are helping, we can be generating a more supported food system locally. That is not only the farmers, but the other businesses that you can be creating support in that farming land, creating true ecosystems in the poorest areas, that people don't only feed themselves, but actually they can create certain level of an economy that goes beyond just trying to survive every day.

Teresa Welsh 

And what you just described was one of the goals of the U.N. Food System Summit, which we now are a year out from. Obviously, we're not in the place where we hoped to be when it came to the food system after that momentous event. What do you want to see happen? What needs to continue to happen with food system reform to carry out that agenda?

José Andrés 

I do believe the governments of the world don't really have a true global food policy. It is not alignment by world leaders, richer countries and poor countries on how to treat food, that's a true national security issue. And giving the same importance we give to our energy and to our defense. I do believe until food doesn't have a space that is beyond the department of agriculture in America and in every country, and we start seeing that food should be seen as a more holistic goal, where everything is affected by food. Food is the problem but can be the solution. Through food systems, we’ll handle the impact that they may have in the environment. Through food systems, we'll be able to be providing food to people in a healthier way that those foods don't make an ever growing population in America around the world that seems every day, we are sicker and more obese, because the way we consume foods and the way we produce those foods. If we don't tackle the food issues, especially in poor countries, it’s going to create the biggest mass migration that humanity has seen in our history. And you can build any wall you want in America and in Europe. If a mother comes, an army of mothers comes with their children, let me tell you who is going to stop those mothers from crashing that wall down. We can keep going on and on the different issues that food itself impacts. But the truth is that until the governments, one by one, starting by United States, Europe, Japan, obviously China, India, don’t start really bringing the food issues near the leaders and start having policies that directly impact, by starting ending hunger. America should not have a food desert ever. This is something like if there is political will, there is going to be the way. America should not have a food desert, period. Why don’t we make a Republican-Democrat commitment to end food deserts? If we started doing certain things like this in America — we understand that not everything functions the same in countries in Latin America or in Africa. But again, every food system requires very direct solutions. If I tell you in America right now, I will ask President Biden, announce tomorrow that food deserts in 10 years will be something of the past and put the entire government at work to make sure that that becomes a reality. You see, where there is political will almost everything can be achieved. Ending food deserts will solve so many problems in America. Will move poor people out of poverty, SNAP dollars will be spent in the same communities where people live, making those communities richer, not poorer by having to spend those SNAP dollars far away from the places they live. You see, the same dollar used to try to feed that family is the same dollar that can be helping that local economy to rise up from total poverty. It’s certain things like this that we can do more, and for some reason we never seem — we talk about it, everybody claps, but then there’s never an announcement that makes it happen.

Teresa Welsh   

Well, Jose Andres, thank you so much for joining us here with Devex’s podcast at UNGA. It was great speaking with you. We look forward to talking to you again soon.

Michael Igoe 

Thanks for listening to UNGA Decoded. We'll be bringing you more interviews from the U.N. General Assembly throughout the next week. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do share it with friends, family, and colleagues. And you can also leave us a rating or a review on Apple podcasts. If you've been to UNGA and have some thoughts, or if you just want to share some feedback on this episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on social media @devex and @AlterIgoe.