Since 2009, the world has been stuck on a single narrative around a coming global food crisis and what we need to do to avoid it. How do we feed nine billion people by 2050? Every conference, podcast and dialogue around global food security starts with this question and goes on to answer it by saying we need to produce 70 percent more food.
从2009年开始, 全世界都在讨论一个话题, 就是即将来临的全球粮食危机, 以及我们应该怎么来避免它。 到2050年,我们 怎么来养活90亿人口? 关于全球粮食危机的每一场会议, 每一期博客,每一场对话 都会问到这个问题, 而答案几乎都是 我们需要增加70%的粮食产量。
The 2050 narrative started to evolve shortly after global food prices hit all-time highs in 2008. People were suffering and struggling, governments and world leaders needed to show us that they were paying attention and were working to solve it. The thing is, 2050 is so far into the future that we can't even relate to it, and more importantly, if we keep doing what we're doing, it's going to hit us a lot sooner than that.
关于2050年的这个话题, 出现在2008年,当时 全球粮食价格达到了历史最高点。 人们焦虑不安, 认为政府和世界领袖们 应该让我们相信, 他们在关注这个问题, 并在着手解决。 但问题是,2050年离我们还很遥远, 可能跟我们都没什么关系了, 更重要的是, 如果我们不做任何改变, 危机会在那之前降临。
I believe we need to ask a different question. The answer to that question needs to be framed differently. If we can reframe the old narrative and replace it with new numbers that tell us a more complete pictures, numbers that everyone can understand and relate to, we can avoid the crisis altogether.
我觉得我们应该问另一个问题。 而这个问题的答案 要重新进行组织。 如果我们换一种表述的方法, 更新一下数据, 可能能看得更全面, 让数据简单易懂, 跟每个人都有关, 我们可以共同来避免这场危机。
I was a commodities trader in my past life and one of the things that I learned trading is that every market has a tipping point, the point at which change occurs so rapidly that it impacts the world and things change forever. Think of the last financial crisis, or the dot-com crash.
我以前是做商品贸易的, 贸易教会我一件事, 每个市场都有一个转折点, 在它来临之时,变化来得如此之快, 会影响整个世界, 带来永久的变化。 想想最近一场金融危机, 或者互联网泡沫。
So here's my concern. We could have a tipping point in global food and agriculture if surging demand surpasses the agricultural system's structural capacity to produce food. This means at this point supply can no longer keep up with demand despite exploding prices, unless we can commit to some type of structural change. This time around, it won't be about stock markets and money. It's about people. People could starve and governments may fall. This question of at what point does supply struggle to keep up with surging demand is one that started off as an interest for me while I was trading and became an absolute obsession. It went from interest to obsession when I realized through my research how broken the system was and how very little data was being used to make such critical decisions. That's the point I decided to walk away from a career on Wall Street and start an entrepreneurial journey to start Gro Intelligence.
因此我担忧的是, 如果大幅增长的粮食需求, 超过了农业系统生产粮食的上限, 那我们在全球粮食和农业市场 也会遇到这个转折点。 到那个时候,供应会跟不上需求, 尽管价格会上涨, 除非我们能从结构上进行某种改变。 到那个时候, 就跟股票市场和货币无关了。 而是跟人有关。 人们会遭遇饥饿,政府会垮台。 这个具体的时间点: 供应何时会跟不上需求? 我在做贸易的时候,起初很感兴趣, 后来变得痴迷 为什么会从兴趣到痴迷呢 因为我在研究过程中发现, 整个体系是如此不完善, 如此重要的决定, 背后的支持数据又如此之少。 于是我决定离开华尔街, 走上创业之路, 成立了Gro Intelligence公司。
At Gro, we focus on bringing this data and doing the work to make it actionable, to empower decision-makers at every level. But doing this work, we also realized that the world, not just world leaders, but businesses and citizens like every single person in this room, lacked an actionable guide on how we can avoid a coming global food security crisis. And so we built a model, leveraging the petabytes of data we sit on, and we solved for the tipping point.
我们专注于数据收集, 并令数据具有可操作性, 以便支持各个级别的决策者。 但在工作过程中, 我们也发现这个世界 不仅仅是领导者, 还包括商人和普通公民, 就像在座的每一个人, 大家都缺乏行动指引, 应该如何避免即将来临的 全球粮食危机。 于是我们建造了一个模型, 利用我们掌握的海量数据, 我们解决了这个转折点的问题。
Now, no one knows we've been working on this problem and this is the first time that I'm sharing what we discovered. We discovered that the tipping point is actually a decade from now. We discovered that the world will be short 214 trillion calories by 2027. The world is not in a position to fill this gap.
目前还没有人知道 我们在研究这个问题, 这也是我首次分享我们的发现。 我们发现,这个转折点 会出现在10年之后。 我们发现,全世界 会有214万亿卡路里的短缺, 到2027年。 目前我们还没办法填补这个短缺。
Now, you'll notice that the way I'm framing this is different from how I started, and that's intentional, because until now this problem has been quantified using mass: think kilograms, tons, hectograms, whatever your unit of choice is in mass. Why do we talk about food in terms of weight? Because it's easy. We can look at a photograph and determine tonnage on a ship by using a simple pocket calculator. We can weigh trucks, airplanes and oxcarts. But what we care about in food is nutritional value. Not all foods are created equal, even if they weigh the same. This I learned firsthand when I moved from Ethiopia to the US for university. Upon my return back home, my father, who was so excited to see me, greeted me by asking why I was fat. Now, turns out that eating approximately the same amount of food as I did in Ethiopia, but in America, had actually lent a certain fullness to my figure. This is why we should care about calories, not about mass. It is calories which sustain us.
你们会发现, 我现在描述的方式跟刚开始不一样, 我是特意这么做的,因为直到现在, 我们都是用重量在量化这个问题: 像千克、吨、百克, 无论怎么选,都是重量单位。 为什么我们要用重量来讨论粮食呢? 因为用起来简单。 我们可以仅凭一张照片, 加一个计算器, 就可以算出一艘船的总吨位。 我们可以测卡车、飞机和牛车的重量。 但真正重要的是粮食的营养。 因为即使重量一样, 粮食也各不相同。 这一点我有亲身体会, 是在我从埃塞尔比亚 到美国念大学的时候。 当我再回老家的时候, 我父亲见到我非常兴奋, 问我为什么长胖了。 原来,尽管我的饭量 跟我在埃塞尔比亚的时候一样大, 但是在美国, 这么多的食物 对我的身体而言是有点多的。 因此我们应该关注卡路里, 而不是重量。 我们都靠卡路里支持。
So 214 trillion calories is a very large number, and not even the most dedicated of us think in the hundreds of trillions of calories. So let me break this down differently. An alternative way to think about this is to think about it in Big Macs. 214 trillion calories. A single Big Mac has 563 calories. That means the world will be short 379 billion Big Macs in 2027. That is more Big Macs than McDonald's has ever produced.
214万亿卡路里是个非常大的数字, 可能即使是最专业的人 也想象不出几百万亿卡路里 意味着什么。 我们换种方式来解释。 我们可以把这些卡路里 都想象成麦当劳的巨无霸汉堡。 214万亿卡路里。 一个巨无霸是563卡路里。 也就是说到2027年, 全世界将短缺3790亿个巨无霸汉堡。 这比麦当劳至今生产的 所有巨无霸还要多。
So how did we get to these numbers in the first place? They're not made up. This map shows you where the world was 40 years ago. It shows you net calorie gaps in every country in the world. Now, simply put, this is just calories consumed in that country minus calories produced in that same country. This is not a statement on malnutrition or anything else. It's simply saying how many calories are consumed in a single year minus how many are produced. Blue countries are net calorie exporters, or self-sufficient. They have some in storage for a rainy day. Red countries are net calorie importers. The deeper, the brighter the red, the more you're importing. 40 years ago, such few countries were net exporters of calories, I could count them with one hand. Most of the African continent, Europe, most of Asia, South America excluding Argentina, were all net importers of calories. And what's surprising is that China used to actually be food self-sufficient. India was a big net importer of calories.
那么这个数据最初是怎么来的呢? 不是我们编的。 这张图显示的是40年前, 每个国家的卡路里差异。 简单来说, 就是该国家消费的卡路里数量, 减去它生产的卡路里数量。 它并不代表营养不良或者其他指标。 仅仅显示1年内消耗的卡路里数量 减去生产的卡路里数量。 蓝色的国家是卡路里净出口国, 或者达到自给自足。 他们还有一些储备以防万一。 红色的是卡路里净进口国。 红色越深越亮的, 代表进口得越多。 40年前,卡路里 净出口国是如此之少, 一只手都能数得过来。 非洲大陆的大部分, 欧洲,亚洲大部分, 南美除了阿根廷, 全是卡路里净进口国。 令人惊讶的是中国 当时居然是自给自足的。 印度则是一个大的卡路里进口国。
40 years later, this is today. You can see the drastic transformation that's occurred in the world. Brazil has emerged as an agricultural powerhouse. Europe is dominant in global agriculture. India has actually flipped from red to blue. It's become food self-sufficient. And China went from that light blue to the brightest red that you see on this map.
40年后,时至今日。 你能看到巨大的变化。 巴西成为了农业引擎。 欧洲成为了全球农业的统治者。 印度从红色变成了蓝色。 已经可以自给自足。 而中国从浅蓝色 变成了这张地图上最亮的红色。
How did we get here? What happened? So this chart shows you India and Africa. Blue line is India, red line is Africa. How is it that two regions that started off so similarly in such similar trajectories take such different paths? India had a green revolution. Not a single African country had a green revolution. The net outcome? India is food self-sufficient and in the past decade has actually been exporting calories. The African continent now imports over 300 trillion calories a year. Then we add China, the green line. Remember the switch from the blue to the bright red? What happened and when did it happen? China seemed to be on a very similar path to India until the start of the 21st century, where it suddenly flipped. A young and growing population combined with significant economic growth made its mark with a big bang and no one in the markets saw it coming. This flip was everything to global agricultural markets. Luckily now, South America was starting to boom at the same time as China's rise, and so therefore, supply and demand were still somewhat balanced.
怎么会变成这样?发生了什么? 这张图显示的是印度和非洲。 蓝色的线是印度,红色的是非洲。 为什么这两个地区 原本的轨迹如此相似, 之后差异变得如此之大? 印度进行了一场绿色革命。 而没有一个非洲国家做到了。 那么产出情况呢? 印度现在自给自足了, 而且过去的10年间 它甚至开始出口卡路里。 现在非洲大陆 每年进口300万亿卡路里。 我们把中国加进来,那条绿线。 还记得吗?它是从蓝色 变成了明亮的红色。 为什么会这样?何时发生的? 中国的曲线刚开始跟印度很像, 直到21世纪初, 突然开始急剧上升。 年轻又不断增长的人口, 加上飞速的经济增长, 导致了这样的结果, 没有人预见到了这一点。 这个转折点对全球农业市场 而言非常重要。 幸运的是,南美洲 开始飞速发展的时间点跟中国一样, 但它的供给和需求还是基本平衡的。
So the question becomes, where do we go from here? Oddly enough, it's not a new story, except this time it's not just a story of China. It's a continuation of China, an amplification of Africa and a paradigm shift in India. By 2023, Africa's population is forecasted to overtake that of India's and China's. By 2023, these three regions combined will make up over half the world's population. This crossover point starts to present really interesting challenges for global food security. And a few years later, we're hit hard with that reality.
于是问题变成了, 接下来我们会何去何从? 神奇的是, 这并不是一个新故事, 只是这一次,这个故事 不仅仅关于中国。 而是中国事态的延续, 非洲事态的放大, 印度事态的大转变 到2023年, 预计非洲的人口数将超过印度和中国。 到那时候,这3个地区的人口 将超过世界总人口的一半。 这个转折点将对全球粮食安全 带来非常有意思的挑战。 几年后,我们就会面对这个严峻的现实。
What does the world look like in 10 years? So far, as I mentioned, India has been food self-sufficient. Most forecasters predict that this will continue. We disagree. India will soon become a net importer of calories. This will be driven both by the fact that demand is growing from a population growth standpoint plus economic growth. It will be driven by both. And even if you have optimistic assumptions around production growth, it will make that slight flip. That slight flip can have huge implications.
10年后的世界会是什么样? 到目前为止,像我刚刚提到的, 印度的粮食是自给自足的。 很多人预测这一点不会改变。 而我们不这么认为。 印度很快会变成一个 卡路里净进口国。 原因有二, 一是需求会随着人口的增长而增长, 二是经济的发展。 这两点都是原因。 即使你们对于生产的增长 持有乐观估计, 那也会带来细微的上扬。 这点细微的上扬 可能会造成巨大的后果。
Next, Africa will continue to be a net importer of calories, again driven by population growth and economic growth. This is again assuming optimistic production growth assumptions. Then China, where population is flattening out, calorie consumption will explode because the types of calories consumed are also starting to be higher-calorie-content foods. And so therefore, these three regions combined start to present a really interesting challenge for the world.
接下来,非洲会继续 作为卡路里净进口地区, 同样也是因为人口增长和经济发展。 同样我们也假设生产的增长是乐观的。 然后是中国, 人口增长已经停止, 而卡路里的消耗却会爆炸式增长, 因为他们所消耗的卡路里种类, 将会来源于高卡路里的食物。 因此, 这3个地区加起来, 会给世界带来有趣的挑战。
Until now, countries with calorie deficits have been able to meet these deficits by importing from surplus regions. By surplus regions, I'm talking about North America, South America and Europe. This line chart over here shows you the growth and the projected growth over the next decade of production from North America, South America and Europe. What it doesn't show you is that most of this growth is actually going to come from South America. And most of this growth is going to come at the huge cost of deforestation. And so when you look at the combined demand increase coming from India, China and the African continent, and look at it versus the combined increase in production coming from India, China, the African continent, North America, South America and Europe, you are left with a 214-trillion-calorie deficit, one we can't produce. And this, by the way, is actually assuming we take all the extra calories produced in North America, South America and Europe and export them solely to India, China and Africa.
到目前为止,那些卡路里不足的国家 尚可以通过从卡路里盈余的地区 进口食物来填补空缺。 我所指的盈余地区, 包括北美、南美和欧洲。 这张图所表现的, 是北美、南美和欧洲生产的增长, 以及未来十年的增长规划。 而从这张图里看不出来的, 是大部分的增长 实际上会来自于南美。 而这大部分的增长, 是靠砍伐森林这种巨大的代价换来的。 因此,当你整体来看 印度、中国和非洲大陆的需求增长, 并将其与生产增长进行对比, 除了上述3个地区外, 还有北美、南美和欧洲, 就会发现存在 214万亿卡路里的空缺, 我们无法填补。 而且这还是假设 我们把北美、南美和欧洲 生产的所有剩余的卡路里, 全部出口到印度、中国和非洲。
What I just presented to you is a vision of an impossible world. We can do something to change that. We can change consumption patterns, we can reduce food waste, or we can make a bold commitment to increasing yields exponentially.
我刚刚呈现给大家的 是一个无解的世界。 我们可以改变这一点。 我们可以改变消费模式, 我们可以减少浪费, 或者我们可以大胆承诺, 呈几何级数的增加产出。
Now, I'm not going to go into discussing changing consumption patterns or reducing food waste, because those conversations have been going on for some time now. Nothing has happened. Nothing has happened because those arguments ask the surplus regions to change their behavior on behalf of deficit regions. Waiting for others to change their behavior on your behalf, for your survival, is a terrible idea. It's unproductive.
今天我不想讨论 改变消费习惯或者减少浪费, 因为类似的话题已经讨论过多次。 然而并没有什么用。 因为这些争论 是要求盈余地区的人改变生活习惯, 来帮助亏空地区的人。 等待别人改变生活习惯 来迁就你,拯救你, 并不是个好主意。 因为效益很低。
So I'd like to suggest an alternative that comes from the red regions. China, India, Africa. China is constrained in terms of how much more land it actually has available for agriculture, and it has massive water resource availability issues. So the answer really lies in India and in Africa. India has some upside in terms of potential yield increases. Now this is the gap between its current yield and the theoretical maximum yield it can achieve. It has some unfarmed arable land remaining, but not much, India is quite land-constrained. Now, the African continent, on the other hand, has vast amounts of arable land remaining and significant upside potential in yields. Somewhat simplified picture here, but if you look at sub-Saharan African yields in corn today, they are where North American yields were in 1940. We don't have 70-plus years to figure this out, so it means we need to try something new and we need to try something different. The solution starts with reforms. We need to reform and commercialize the agricultural industries in Africa and in India.
因此我对红色地区的国家 有一个替代方案。 中国、印度和非洲。 中国因为没有更多的土地 可以用来发展农业, 而且水资源也非常有限。 因此只能靠印度和非洲。 印度在增产方面还有些潜力可挖。 目前的产量 和理论最高产量间还有些差距。 印度还有些未开垦的耕地,但是不多, 它的土地也很紧张。 而非洲大陆,情况却不一样, 还有很多可耕种的土地, 在产量上还有巨大的潜力。 这是大致的情况, 但撒哈拉以南非洲如今的玉米产量, 相当于北美1940年的水平。 我们已经没有70多年 的时间来解决问题了, 这就意味着我们要用新方法, 要尝试不同的方法。 解决问题需要从变革开始。 我们需要对非洲和印度的农业 进行改革, 将其商业化。
Now, by commercialization -- commercialization is not about commercial farming alone. Commercialization is about leveraging data to craft better policies, to improve infrastructure, to lower the transportation costs and to completely reform banking and insurance industries. Commercialization is about taking agriculture from too risky an endeavor to one where fortunes can be made. Commercialization is not about just farmers. Commercialization is about the entire agricultural system. But commercialization also means confronting the fact that we can no longer place the burden of growth on small-scale farmers alone, and accepting that commercial farms and the introduction of commercial farms could provide certain economies of scale that even small-scale farmers can leverage. It is not about small-scale farming or commercial agriculture, or big agriculture. We can create the first successful models of the coexistence and success of small-scale farming alongside commercial agriculture. This is because, for the first time ever, the most critical tool for success in the industry -- data and knowledge -- is becoming cheaper by the day. And very soon, it won't matter how much money you have or how big you are to make optimal decisions and maximize probability of success in reaching your intended goal. Companies like Gro are working really hard to make this a reality.
说到商业化, 商业化并不仅仅单指耕种。 商业化是要利用数据, 来制定更好的政策, 改进基础设施, 降低运输成本, 并且彻底改革银行和保险业。 商业化就是要把农业 从一个高风险的行业 变成可以致富的行业。 商业化不仅仅是农民的事。 而是关乎整个农业系统。 但是商业化也意味着 我们要面对一个事实, 那就是我们不能把光把增产的重担 压在小农场主身上, 要接受一点,就是商业化农场的推行, 可以提供规模经济, 即使小农场主也可以加以利用。 不单单是小规模农业或者商业化农业, 或者大农业。 我们可以让小规模农业和商业化农业共存, 建立首批成功的案例。 因为有史以来第一次, 工业领域成功所需要的最重要的工具, 数据和知识, 变得越来越便宜。 很快,在追求成功的过程中, 在为达成目标而寻求最佳选择的过程中, 你有多少资金不再重要, 经营者的规模大小也不重要。 像Gro这样的公司 正在努力将这一切变成现实。
So if we can commit to this new, bold initiative, to this new, bold change, not only can we solve the 214-trillion gap that I talked about, but we can actually set the world on a whole new path. India can remain food self-sufficient and Africa can emerge as the world's next dark blue region.
如果我们能大胆承诺一个全新的未来, 承诺一个全新的、巨大的改变, 那么我们不光能解决 刚刚谈到的214万亿卡路里的问题, 我们甚至可以将世界带上新的道路。 印度的粮食依然可以自给自足, 非洲可以成为世界上 下一个深蓝色的区域。
The new question is, how do we produce 214 trillion calories to feed 8.3 billion people by 2027? We have the solution. We just need to act on it.
新的问题是, 我们如何生产出这214万亿卡路里, 到2027年养活83亿人? 我们已经有方案了。 我们只需要开始行动。
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
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