YouSaid · the spoken record

Menker

lines on the record: 12
first: 2022-05-19
most recent: 2022-05-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It tells us that, while the next few years will likely be difficult as a result of the statistically unusual confluence of the five challenges I shared, we can coordinate a global response, eschew a “to each their own” mentality as to food security and climate risk, be willing to have constructive, albeit difficult, conversations and jointly accept that what we have to address is less of a food shortage and more of a crisis of prioritization.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“There are positive solutions and approaches that can be proffered and delivered, but they will require coordinated global effort. We are all dependent on one another. In wrapping up, what does the data tell us about risk and interdependencies? It tells us, not unlike the global financial crisis of 2008, that there are fault lines and tremor-like early-warning signals that seem disconnected at a global level, but are not. What does the data tell us about hope?”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“One key takeaway from our data is how often we see repeated examples of cause and effect, highlighting surprising connections and interdependencies. For example, in the United States, the most self-sufficient country globally, a consumption-weighted basket of food — a grocery basket — has doubled in price since April 2020. Price increases were driven by unprecedented demand around the world alongside climate-related supply-side shocks. We cannot solve food insecurity on a national scale anywhere. One thing we strongly believe is that we can have a healthy economy and a secure food system without degrading our environment. We have the capability to help everyone feel secure about having enough food. Data helps us navigate because we are not blind to risks and outcomes related to food security. We cannot say that we did not know.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“Russian exports, which also include fertilizer, are limited because of Black Sea maritime hazards. Any one of the five things I outlined would be considered a major issue in commodity markets. The five combined are truly unprecedented. I come here today not to specifically offer or provide solutions, as there will be other venues to do so, but rather to X-ray and diagnose the problem for those in this Chamber who have the power to change the course of our history. In a world that is increasingly isolationist, we need to come together. Food is personal, but our agricultural systems are global. There is no version of the world where every country has all the natural resources it needs to survive and thrive.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“It is important to note that the lowest grain inventory levels the world has ever seen are now occurring, while access to fertilizers is highly constrained and drought in wheat-growing regions around the world is the most extreme it has been in over 20 years. Similar inventory concerns also apply to corn and other grains. Government estimates are not adding up. The fifth and final challenge is logistics. Russia and Ukraine used to provide nearly a third of the world’s wheat exports and are both among the top five exporters of corn globally. Combined, they used to export 75 per cent of global sunflower-oil supplies. All Ukrainian ports remain closed, making it impossible to move any of Ukraine’s harvested grain across its borders. Shifting to rail will move less than 10 per cent of pre-war flow, which is not enough.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“The recent export ban in Indonesia, the world’s largest palm-oil producer, which is responsible for 60 per cent of global production, has added significant upward price pressure to vegetable oils. The fourth challenge is grains. Official government agency estimates from around the world put wheat inventories at 33 per cent of annual consumption. Verifiable data from public and private sources that our company organizes and then builds statistical models to connect the dots between them on our platform show that global wheat inventories are in fact closer to 20 per cent, a level not seen since the financial and commodity crisis of 2007 and 2008. We currently have only 10 weeks of global consumption sitting in inventory around the world. Conditions today are worse than those experienced in 2007 and 2008.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“Major breadbaskets such as the United States and Brazil, the world’s two largest exporters of agricultural products, are also experiencing extreme droughts. For example, Brazil’s cropland soil moisture is at a 20- year low. Major grain importers in the Middle East and Africa are also experiencing record droughts. In short, both major importers and major exporters are experiencing exceptional drought conditions. The third challenge is cooking oils. The price of traditionally cheap palm oil nearly tripled in the past two years, driven by increased biofuels demand, drought in regions that produce alternative cooking oils, such as Brazil and Canada, record import demand from China and the loss of nearly 75 per cent of global sunflower oil exports due to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“It is a once-in-a-generation occurrence that can dramatically reshape the geopolitical era. Now let us move to the five challenges. The first is fertilizer. Global fertilizer prices have nearly tripled year-on-year, and quadrupled over the past two years, because of supply shocks driven by logistical bottlenecks, restrictions on natural gas, which impact the ability to produce fertilizer, sanctions and export restrictions amid the Russia-Ukraine war. That risks significant crop-yield reductions in key producing regions such as Brazil, the United States and Western Europe later this year and next year, severely impacting global food security and inflation for the next 3 to 5 years, at a minimum. The second challenge is climate. Global drought conditions for wheat are the worst in over 20 years.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“Countries disproportionately affected are in regions such as North Africa and the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and West and Central Asia. And it can get much worse. Data shows that the food security challenges we are facing will last several years. There are five major challenges occurring simultaneously that are each, individually, extraordinary — lack of fertilizer, climate disruptions, record low inventories in cooking oils, record low inventories of grains and logistical bottlenecks that have already started to unravel decades of global economic progress. Without substantial, immediate and aggressive coordinated global actions, we stand the risk of allowing extraordinary amounts of both human suffering and economic damage. This is not cyclical, this is seismic.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“Gro Intelligence estimates show that price increases in major food crops year-to- date have made an additional 400 million people food insecure. There are few food and security statistics shared, so I wanted to define that by saying that we are talking here about the number of people living on $3.59 a day. That is a broader standard, but it is a march towards starvation. To put it into perspective, that is equivalent to the number of people that China has taken out of poverty over the past 20 years. In five months we have undone 20 years of progress. Furthermore, our economic-shock models show that year-to-date changes in prices of agricultural products have already affected some economies by 3 to 5 per cent of their gross domestic product.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“We combine that with world-class engineering and artificial-intelligence talent. We work with large and small companies, financial institutions and Governments. I come here today to share insights from our data, with the underlying hope that all of us here with the power to change the course of history will choose to do so. I want to start by explicitly saying that the Russia-Ukraine conflict did not start a food security crisis. It simply added fuel to a fire that was long burning — a crisis whose tremors we detected long before the coronavirus disease pandemic exposed the fragility of our supply chains. I share that because we believe it is important for everyone to understand that, even if the war were to end tomorrow, our food security problem would not go away anytime soon without concerted action. Now on to the statistics.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source
“Ms. Menker: I thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me to address the Security Council. It is an honour to be here today to highlight and reaffirm that food security is in fact national security and global stability. Before I share some data-driven insights on the state of our global food systems, let me tell the Security Council a little bit about Gro Intelligence. Gro is a company founded to help tackle two of the greatest challenges we face as humankind — food security and climate change. We are a global company with offices in Nairobi, Singapore and New York. Our team comes from over 40 countries that range from Ethiopia, where I am from, to Russia, Nigeria, India, the United States, China and Ukraine. We are a company of domain experts in software infrastructure, climate science, agronomy, trading and financial markets.”
2022-05-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9036 (2022) · source