Issue 135 forty chances book review

PAEDIATRIC BOOK REVIEW

FORTY CHANCES

FINDING HOPE IN A HUNGRY WORLD

Review by Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics Ursula has a degree in dietetics, and currently works as a freelance nutrition writer. She has been a columnist on nutrition for more than 30 years.

HOWARD G BUFFETT PUBLISHER: SIMON & SCHUSTER, 2014, ISBN: 978-1451687873 PRICE: £12.26

It’s not easy having a billionaire father (ask Ivanka Trump). There is only so much champagne you can drink whilst soaking up the sun on a tropical beach before it gets boring. It is difficult to remember the names of all the servants and butlers and ‘friends’, and you can never get away from being watched, pestered and judged.

However, some billionaire offspring have found other ways to spend their time and parental money. Howard Buffett received more than three billion dollars ($3,000,000,000) from his father Warren, who is number three on the US rich list (after Microsoft-Gates and Amazon-Bezos). The only instruction from his father was to, “accomplish something great in the world.” Howard chose to challenge world hunger and this book is his story.

Howard Buffett loves food and even more, he really loves farmers. He decided not to complete college, but he does remember a ‘click’ moment whilst listening to a lecture on farming. The speaker explained that most farmers had 40 cycles of crop in their lives; 40 chances to perfect the cycle of planting to harvesting. For young Howard, this thought set him into a panic: he had all the money in the world, but not all the time. He had to rush to grab the unique opportunities that he had to make a dent into the statistics on world hunger.

There are not many college dropouts whose first jobs allow being on the board of the largest multibillion food processor in the world - Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) company. He is still on the boards of many companies and is a

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United Nations Goodwill Ambassador Against Hunger. But now, most of his time is in the management of his own foundation. A benefit of being very rich, is not having to play office politics: no tiresome professional hierarchies to slither around, or muddled going-incircles committees to have to placate - it is all your money, so it is all your decision.

The book is 40 chapters of thoughts on food production and distribution.

Howard Buffett describes his travels in the most extreme environments and his encounters with the poorest people.

He especially loves talking to sweatbeaded and dusty farmers: why they do things this way and not that. His book is full of anecdotes from personal and professional encounters and from these, his attempts to improve food production and distribution via his foundation.

Howard Buffett has some repeat themes in his observations. The Green Revolution, which is the development of high-yield seeds and the use of artificial fertilizer and pesticide, has achieved much to improve crop outputs. But relative improvements are now smaller and there is an urgent need to research and promote the Brown Revolution, which are practices to improve soil

Howard Buffett loves food and even more, he really loves farmers . . . most farmers had 40 cycles of crop in their lives; 40 chances to perfect the cycle of planting to harvesting. quality. This translates as no-till post-harvest practices. The concepts of crimper rollers, and ‘zai pits’ are inspiring examples of Americans learning from Africans. Other repeat themes are the essential concepts of value chains in supporting agricultural development, protecting local food producers in situations of emergency food relief, and critiques of monetization by food aid charities.

Buffett shares many examples of disconnects: situations where American agricultural experts, after much thought and data examination, recommend practice A, which cannot ever be implemented by poor farmers in countries in South America and Africa, because of problems B, C and D. One illustration of this is the chapter about mouse-catchers in southern Malawi.

Fields in Malawi are cleared post-harvest with small controlled fires, but Howard’s experts tried to advise against this because it resulted in the loss of organic matter essential to support soil fertility in areas where artificial fertilizer was not available or too expensive. Despite this advice, fire setting continued. Eventually, the delicate issues were explained to Howard: land was not owned by individuals, but rather by tribes. Post-harvest, fires were set for many reasons, including that it allowed the efficient capturing of mice, allowing the double benefit of providing a tasty protein snack for locals as well as protecting crops from vermin damage.

Mouse-hunters had a longstanding tribal right to burn any fields post-harvest, and keeping them happy was a new challenge for Howard’s American agricultural advisors.

Another disconnect that Howard Buffett despairs about, is American foreign aid monetization. What does this mean? Briefly, it is the selling of food in recipient countries, sent via food aid funding, to pay for other aspects of charity work. This results in bizarre outcomes,

so that American wheat sent via government aid routes appears in the foods served in finedining environments in African hotels and restaurants.

Of course, there is method behind the madness. The US government supports farmers via price and purchase commitments, which factor in foreign aid commitments. Further, the US government supports commercial shipping viability by requirements for their use to distribute food aid: often, Howard notes, the cost of shipping exceeds the value of the cargo. So, for example, would it not be better for US tax payers to donate $8.4 million to purchase food and support agricultural projects in local markets rather than spend $3.9 million on wheat and $4.5 million on shipping costs? It is politically difficult for US foreign-aid charities to get further public funding via Washington decision makers, but they are allowed to ‘monetize’, i.e. sell food aid goods.

So, what does any of this have to do with dietetics? Dietitians work at the far end of the food chain, usually between food-shop to forks. Farms and fertilizer and forklifts are far away (professionally). Of course, dietitians cannot contribute meaningfully to agricultural assessments and debates around the economics of food production and distribution. However, nutrition is a strong driver in many of these decisions, particularly as the pressure of more mouths to feed increases and hi-tech solutions (agri-tech) propose the balance between most human health against least environmental damage.

For better outcomes, perhaps dietitians should be joining these discussions? Perhaps this starts with understanding the vocabulary of agri-tech? Listening to The Archers is good; reading this book by Howard Buffett is (much) better. www.NHDmag.com June 2018 - Issue 135

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