0:00:00.000,0:00:02.000
I'm not at all a cook.

0:00:02.000,0:00:05.000
So don't fear, this is not going to be a cooking demonstration.

0:00:05.000,0:00:07.000
But I do want to talk to you about something

0:00:07.000,0:00:10.000
that I think is dear to all of us.

0:00:10.000,0:00:13.000
And that is bread -- something which is as simple

0:00:13.000,0:00:17.000
as our basic, most fundamental human staple.

0:00:17.000,0:00:20.000
And I think few of us spend the day

0:00:20.000,0:00:23.000
without eating bread in some form.

0:00:23.000,0:00:27.000
Unless you're on one of these Californian low-carb diets,

0:00:27.000,0:00:29.000
bread is standard.

0:00:29.000,0:00:31.000
Bread is not only standard in the Western diet.

0:00:31.000,0:00:33.000
As I will show to you, it is actually

0:00:33.000,0:00:36.000
the mainstay of modern life.

0:00:36.000,0:00:38.000
So I'm going to bake bread for you.

0:00:38.000,0:00:41.000
In the meantime I'm also talking to you,

0:00:41.000,0:00:44.000
so my life is going to be complicated. Bear with me.

0:00:44.000,0:00:48.000
First of all, a little bit of audience participation.

0:00:48.000,0:00:51.000
I have two loaves of bread here.

0:00:51.000,0:00:54.000
One is a supermarket standard:

0:00:54.000,0:00:56.000
white bread, pre-packaged,

0:00:56.000,0:00:59.000
which I'm told is called a Wonderbread.

0:00:59.000,0:01:00.000
(Laughter)

0:01:00.000,0:01:02.000
I didn't know this word until I arrived.

0:01:02.000,0:01:05.000
And this is more or less,

0:01:05.000,0:01:07.000
a whole-meal, handmade,

0:01:07.000,0:01:09.000
small-bakery loaf of bread.

0:01:09.000,0:01:12.000
Here we go. I want to see a show of hands.

0:01:12.000,0:01:17.000
Who prefers the whole-meal bread?

0:01:17.000,0:01:21.000
Okay let me do this differently. Is anybody preferring the Wonderbread at all?

0:01:21.000,0:01:22.000
(Laughter)

0:01:22.000,0:01:26.000
I have two tentative male hands.

0:01:26.000,0:01:29.000
(Laughter)

0:01:29.000,0:01:32.000
Okay, now the question is really,

0:01:32.000,0:01:34.000
why is this so?

0:01:34.000,0:01:36.000
And I think it is because

0:01:36.000,0:01:39.000
we feel that this kind of bread

0:01:39.000,0:01:42.000
really is about authenticity.

0:01:42.000,0:01:45.000
It's about a traditional way of living.

0:01:45.000,0:01:49.000
A way that is perhaps more real, more honest.

0:01:49.000,0:01:52.000
This is an image from Tuscany, where we feel

0:01:52.000,0:01:54.000
agriculture is still about beauty.

0:01:54.000,0:01:56.000
And life is really, too.

0:01:56.000,0:02:00.000
And this is about good taste, good traditions.

0:02:00.000,0:02:02.000
Why do we have this image?

0:02:02.000,0:02:07.000
Why do we feel that this is more true than this?

0:02:07.000,0:02:10.000
Well I think it has a lot to do with our history.

0:02:10.000,0:02:13.000
In the 10,000 years since agriculture evolved,

0:02:13.000,0:02:17.000
most of our ancestors have actually been agriculturalists

0:02:17.000,0:02:20.000
or they were closely related to food production.

0:02:20.000,0:02:22.000
And we have this mythical image

0:02:22.000,0:02:26.000
of how life was in rural areas in the past.

0:02:26.000,0:02:29.000
Art has helped us to maintain that kind of image.

0:02:29.000,0:02:32.000
It was a mythical past.

0:02:32.000,0:02:34.000
Of course, the reality is quite different.

0:02:34.000,0:02:36.000
These poor farmers

0:02:36.000,0:02:38.000
working the land by hand or with their animals,

0:02:38.000,0:02:41.000
had yield levels that are comparable

0:02:41.000,0:02:44.000
to the poorest farmers today in West Africa.

0:02:44.000,0:02:46.000
But we have, somehow,

0:02:46.000,0:02:50.000
in the course of the last few centuries, or even decades,

0:02:50.000,0:02:52.000
started to cultivate an image of

0:02:52.000,0:02:56.000
a mythical, rural agricultural past.

0:02:56.000,0:02:58.000
It was only 200 years ago

0:02:58.000,0:03:01.000
that we had the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

0:03:01.000,0:03:04.000
And while I'm starting to make some bread for you here,

0:03:04.000,0:03:06.000
it's very important to understand

0:03:06.000,0:03:09.000
what that revolution did to us.

0:03:09.000,0:03:15.000
It brought us power. It brought us mechanization, fertilizers.

0:03:15.000,0:03:17.000
And it actually drove up our yields.

0:03:17.000,0:03:21.000
And even sort of horrible things, like picking beans by hand,

0:03:21.000,0:03:24.000
can now be done automatically.

0:03:24.000,0:03:29.000
All that is a real, great improvement, as we shall see.

0:03:29.000,0:03:33.000
Of course we also, particularly in the last decade,

0:03:33.000,0:03:35.000
managed to envelop the world

0:03:35.000,0:03:38.000
in a dense chain of supermarkets,

0:03:38.000,0:03:41.000
in a chain of global trade.

0:03:41.000,0:03:43.000
And it means that you now eat products,

0:03:43.000,0:03:46.000
which can come from all around the world.

0:03:46.000,0:03:49.000
That is the reality of our modern life.

0:03:49.000,0:03:53.000
Now you may prefer this loaf of bread.

0:03:53.000,0:03:56.000
Excuse my hands but this is how it is.

0:03:56.000,0:03:59.000
But actually the real relevant bread,

0:03:59.000,0:04:03.000
historically, is this white Wonder loaf.

0:04:03.000,0:04:06.000
And don't despise the white bread

0:04:06.000,0:04:09.000
because it really, I think,

0:04:09.000,0:04:12.000
symbolizes the fact that bread and food

0:04:12.000,0:04:16.000
have become plentiful and affordable to all.

0:04:16.000,0:04:18.000
And that is a feat that we

0:04:18.000,0:04:21.000
are not really conscious of that much.

0:04:21.000,0:04:23.000
But it has changed the world.

0:04:23.000,0:04:26.000
This tiny bread that is tasteless in some ways

0:04:26.000,0:04:28.000
and has a lot of problems

0:04:28.000,0:04:31.000
has changed the world.

0:04:31.000,0:04:33.000
So what is happening?

0:04:33.000,0:04:37.000
Well the best way to look at that is to do a tiny bit of simplistic statistics.

0:04:37.000,0:04:40.000
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution

0:04:40.000,0:04:42.000
with modernization of agriculture

0:04:42.000,0:04:46.000
in the last few decades, since the 1960s,

0:04:46.000,0:04:49.000
food availability, per head, in this world,

0:04:49.000,0:04:52.000
has increased by 25 percent.

0:04:52.000,0:04:56.000
And the world population in the meantime has doubled.

0:04:56.000,0:04:59.000
That means that we have now more food available

0:04:59.000,0:05:01.000
than ever before in human history.

0:05:01.000,0:05:03.000
And that is the result, directly,

0:05:03.000,0:05:05.000
of being so successful

0:05:05.000,0:05:09.000
at increasing the scale and volume of our production.

0:05:09.000,0:05:12.000
And this is true, as you can see, for all countries,

0:05:12.000,0:05:14.000
including the so-called developing countries.

0:05:14.000,0:05:17.000
What happened to our bread in the meantime?

0:05:17.000,0:05:19.000
As food became plentiful here,

0:05:19.000,0:05:21.000
it also meant that we were able to decrease

0:05:21.000,0:05:25.000
the number of people working in agriculture

0:05:25.000,0:05:29.000
to something like, on average, in the high income countries,

0:05:29.000,0:05:33.000
five percent or less of the population.

0:05:33.000,0:05:37.000
In the U.S. only one percent of the people are actually farmers.

0:05:37.000,0:05:40.000
And it frees us all up to do other things --

0:05:40.000,0:05:43.000
to sit at TED meetings and not to worry about our food.

0:05:43.000,0:05:47.000
That is, historically, a really unique situation.

0:05:47.000,0:05:51.000
Never before has the responsibility to feed the world

0:05:51.000,0:05:53.000
been in the hands of so few people.

0:05:53.000,0:05:56.000
And never before have so many people

0:05:56.000,0:05:59.000
been oblivious of that fact.

0:05:59.000,0:06:03.000
So as food became more plentiful, bread became cheaper.

0:06:03.000,0:06:07.000
And as it became cheaper, bread manufacturers decided to add in all kinds of things.

0:06:07.000,0:06:09.000
We added in more sugar.

0:06:09.000,0:06:15.000
We add in raisins and oil and milk

0:06:15.000,0:06:17.000
and all kinds of things to make bread,

0:06:17.000,0:06:22.000
from a simple food into kind of a support for calories.

0:06:22.000,0:06:26.000
And today, bread now is associated with obesity,

0:06:26.000,0:06:28.000
which is very strange.

0:06:28.000,0:06:30.000
It is the basic, most fundamental food

0:06:30.000,0:06:33.000
that we've had in the last ten thousand years.

0:06:33.000,0:06:37.000
Wheat is the most important crop -- the first crop we domesticated

0:06:37.000,0:06:39.000
and the most important crop we still grow today.

0:06:39.000,0:06:42.000
But this is now this strange concoction

0:06:42.000,0:06:44.000
of high calories.

0:06:44.000,0:06:47.000
And that's not only true in this country,

0:06:47.000,0:06:49.000
it is true all over the world.

0:06:49.000,0:06:51.000
Bread has migrated to tropical countries,

0:06:51.000,0:06:55.000
where the middle classes now eat French rolls and hamburgers

0:06:55.000,0:06:58.000
and where the commuters

0:06:58.000,0:07:00.000
find bread much more handy to use

0:07:00.000,0:07:02.000
than rice or cassava.

0:07:02.000,0:07:06.000
So bread has become from a main staple,

0:07:06.000,0:07:08.000
a source of calories

0:07:08.000,0:07:10.000
associated with obesity

0:07:10.000,0:07:12.000
and also a source of modernity,

0:07:12.000,0:07:14.000
of modern life.

0:07:14.000,0:07:17.000
And the whiter the bread, in many countries, the better it is.

0:07:17.000,0:07:20.000
So this is the story of bread as we know it now.

0:07:20.000,0:07:24.000
But of course the price of mass production

0:07:24.000,0:07:27.000
has been that we moved large-scale.

0:07:27.000,0:07:31.000
And large-scale has meant destruction of many of our landscapes,

0:07:31.000,0:07:33.000
destruction of biodiversity --

0:07:33.000,0:07:35.000
still a lonely emu here

0:07:35.000,0:07:38.000
in the Brazilian cerrado soybean fields.

0:07:38.000,0:07:40.000
The costs have been tremendous --

0:07:40.000,0:07:44.000
water pollution, all the things you know about, destruction of our habitats.

0:07:44.000,0:07:49.000
What we need to do is to go back to understanding what our food is about.

0:07:49.000,0:07:51.000
And this is where I have to query all of you.

0:07:51.000,0:07:55.000
How many of you can actually tell wheat apart from other cereals?

0:07:55.000,0:07:58.000
How many of you actually can make a bread

0:07:58.000,0:08:01.000
in this way, without starting with a bread machine

0:08:01.000,0:08:05.000
or just some kind of packaged flavor?

0:08:05.000,0:08:09.000
Can you actually bake bread? Do you know how much a loaf of bread actually costs?

0:08:09.000,0:08:11.000
We have become very removed

0:08:11.000,0:08:13.000
from what our bread really is,

0:08:13.000,0:08:15.000
which, again, evolutionarily speaking,

0:08:15.000,0:08:17.000
is very strange.

0:08:17.000,0:08:19.000
In fact not many of you know that

0:08:19.000,0:08:21.000
our bread, of course, was not a European invention.

0:08:21.000,0:08:23.000
It was invented by farmers in Iraq

0:08:23.000,0:08:25.000
and Syria in particular.

0:08:25.000,0:08:28.000
The tiny spike on the left to the center

0:08:28.000,0:08:31.000
is actually the forefather of wheat.

0:08:31.000,0:08:33.000
This is where it all comes from,

0:08:33.000,0:08:36.000
and where these farmers who actually, ten thousand years ago,

0:08:36.000,0:08:39.000
put us on the road of bread.

0:08:39.000,0:08:41.000
Now it is not surprising

0:08:41.000,0:08:44.000
that with this massification and large-scale production,

0:08:44.000,0:08:46.000
there is a counter-movement that emerged --

0:08:46.000,0:08:48.000
very much also here in California.

0:08:48.000,0:08:51.000
The counter-movement says, "Let's go back to this.

0:08:51.000,0:08:53.000
Let's go back to traditional farming.

0:08:53.000,0:08:57.000
Let's go back to small-scale, to farmers' markets,

0:08:57.000,0:09:00.000
small bakeries and all that." Wonderful.

0:09:00.000,0:09:02.000
Don't we all agree? I certainly agree.

0:09:02.000,0:09:04.000
I would love to go back to Tuscany

0:09:04.000,0:09:06.000
to this kind of traditional setting,

0:09:06.000,0:09:08.000
gastronomy, good food.

0:09:08.000,0:09:10.000
But this is a fallacy.

0:09:10.000,0:09:13.000
And the fallacy comes from idealizing

0:09:13.000,0:09:16.000
a past that we have forgotten about.

0:09:16.000,0:09:20.000
If we do this, if we want to stay with traditional small-scale farming

0:09:20.000,0:09:23.000
we are going, actually, to relegate

0:09:23.000,0:09:26.000
these poor farmers and their husbands --

0:09:26.000,0:09:28.000
among whom I have lived for many years,

0:09:28.000,0:09:31.000
working without electricity and water, to try to improve their food production --

0:09:31.000,0:09:34.000
we relegate them to poverty.

0:09:34.000,0:09:36.000
What they want are implements

0:09:36.000,0:09:38.000
to increase their production:

0:09:38.000,0:09:40.000
something to fertilize the soil,

0:09:40.000,0:09:43.000
something to protect their crop and to bring it to a market.

0:09:43.000,0:09:45.000
We cannot just think that small-scale

0:09:45.000,0:09:48.000
is the solution to the world food problem.

0:09:48.000,0:09:51.000
It's a luxury solution for us who can afford it,

0:09:51.000,0:09:53.000
if you want to afford it.

0:09:53.000,0:09:55.000
In fact we do not want this poor woman

0:09:55.000,0:09:57.000
to work the land like this.

0:09:57.000,0:09:59.000
If we say just small-scale production,

0:09:59.000,0:10:01.000
as is the tendency here,

0:10:01.000,0:10:04.000
to go back to local food means that a poor man like Hans Rosling

0:10:04.000,0:10:06.000
cannot even eat oranges anymore

0:10:06.000,0:10:09.000
because in Scandinavia we don't have oranges.

0:10:09.000,0:10:11.000
So local food production is out.

0:10:11.000,0:10:13.000
But also we do not want

0:10:13.000,0:10:16.000
to relegate to poverty in the rural areas.

0:10:16.000,0:10:18.000
And we do not want to relegate

0:10:18.000,0:10:21.000
the urban poor to starvation.

0:10:21.000,0:10:24.000
So we must find other solutions.

0:10:24.000,0:10:26.000
One of our problems is that world food production

0:10:26.000,0:10:28.000
needs to increase very rapidly --

0:10:28.000,0:10:31.000
doubling by about 2030.

0:10:31.000,0:10:34.000
The main driver of that is actually meat.

0:10:34.000,0:10:37.000
And meat consumption in Southeast Asia and China in particular

0:10:37.000,0:10:42.000
is what drives the prices of cereals.

0:10:42.000,0:10:46.000
That need for animal protein is going to continue.

0:10:46.000,0:10:49.000
We can discuss alternatives in another talk, perhaps one day,

0:10:49.000,0:10:51.000
but this is our driving force.

0:10:51.000,0:10:53.000
So what can we do?

0:10:53.000,0:10:57.000
Can we find a solution to produce more?

0:10:57.000,0:11:01.000
Yes. But we need mechanization.

0:11:01.000,0:11:03.000
And I'm making a real plea here.

0:11:03.000,0:11:07.000
I feel so strongly that you cannot ask a small farmer

0:11:07.000,0:11:10.000
to work the land and bend over to grow a hectare of rice,

0:11:10.000,0:11:14.000
150,000 times, just to plant a crop and weed it.

0:11:14.000,0:11:17.000
You cannot ask people to work under these conditions.

0:11:17.000,0:11:20.000
We need clever low-key mechanization

0:11:20.000,0:11:24.000
that avoids the problems of the large-scale mechanization that we've had.

0:11:24.000,0:11:26.000
So what can we do?

0:11:26.000,0:11:29.000
We must feed three billion people in cities.

0:11:29.000,0:11:31.000
We will not do that through small farmers' markets

0:11:31.000,0:11:35.000
because these people have no small farmers' markets at their disposal.

0:11:35.000,0:11:38.000
They have low incomes. And they benefit

0:11:38.000,0:11:41.000
from cheap, affordable, safe and diverse food.

0:11:41.000,0:11:44.000
That's what we must aim for in the next 20 to 30 years.

0:11:44.000,0:11:46.000
But yes there are some solutions.

0:11:46.000,0:11:50.000
And let me just do one simple conceptual thing:

0:11:50.000,0:11:53.000
if I plot science as a proxy

0:11:53.000,0:11:57.000
for control of the production process and scale.

0:11:57.000,0:11:59.000
What you see is that we've started

0:11:59.000,0:12:02.000
in the left-hand corner with traditional agriculture,

0:12:02.000,0:12:05.000
which was sort of small-scale and low-control.

0:12:05.000,0:12:09.000
We've moved towards large-scale and very high control.

0:12:09.000,0:12:14.000
What I want us to do is to keep up the science and even get more science in there

0:12:14.000,0:12:16.000
but go to a kind of regional scale --

0:12:16.000,0:12:18.000
not just in terms of the scale of the fields,

0:12:18.000,0:12:21.000
but in terms of the entire food network.

0:12:21.000,0:12:23.000
That's where we should move.

0:12:23.000,0:12:26.000
And the ultimate may be, but it doesn't apply to cereals,

0:12:26.000,0:12:29.000
that we have entirely closed ecosystems --

0:12:29.000,0:12:33.000
the horticultural systems right at the top left-hand corner.

0:12:33.000,0:12:37.000
So we need to think differently about agriculture science.

0:12:37.000,0:12:39.000
Agriculture science for most people -- and there are not many farmers

0:12:39.000,0:12:41.000
among you here --

0:12:41.000,0:12:44.000
has this name of being bad,

0:12:44.000,0:12:46.000
of being about pollution, about large-scale,

0:12:46.000,0:12:48.000
about the destruction of the environment.

0:12:48.000,0:12:50.000
That is not necessary.

0:12:50.000,0:12:53.000
We need more science and not less. And we need good science.

0:12:53.000,0:12:55.000
So what kind of science can we have?

0:12:55.000,0:12:57.000
Well first of all I think

0:12:57.000,0:13:00.000
we can do much better on the existing technologies.

0:13:00.000,0:13:02.000
Use biotechnology where useful,

0:13:02.000,0:13:05.000
particularly in pest and disease resistance.

0:13:05.000,0:13:07.000
There are also robots, for example,

0:13:07.000,0:13:09.000
who can recognize weeds

0:13:09.000,0:13:12.000
with a resolution of half an inch.

0:13:12.000,0:13:14.000
We have much cleverer irrigation.

0:13:14.000,0:13:18.000
We do not need to spill the water if we don't want to.

0:13:18.000,0:13:21.000
And we need to think very dispassionately

0:13:21.000,0:13:23.000
about the comparative advantages

0:13:23.000,0:13:26.000
of small-scale and large-scale.

0:13:26.000,0:13:28.000
We need to think that land is multi-functional.

0:13:28.000,0:13:30.000
It has different functions.

0:13:30.000,0:13:33.000
There are different ways in which we must use it --

0:13:33.000,0:13:36.000
for residential, for nature, for agriculture purposes.

0:13:36.000,0:13:39.000
And we also need to re-examine livestock.

0:13:39.000,0:13:42.000
Go regional and go to urban food systems.

0:13:42.000,0:13:46.000
I want to see fish ponds in parking lots and basements.

0:13:46.000,0:13:48.000
I want to have horticulture

0:13:48.000,0:13:51.000
and greenhouses on top of residential areas.

0:13:51.000,0:13:54.000
And I want to use the energy that comes from those greenhouses

0:13:54.000,0:13:56.000
and from the fermentation of crops

0:13:56.000,0:13:58.000
to heat our residential areas.

0:13:58.000,0:14:00.000
There are all kinds of ways we can do it.

0:14:00.000,0:14:02.000
We cannot solve the world food problem

0:14:02.000,0:14:04.000
by using biological agriculture.

0:14:04.000,0:14:07.000
But we can do a lot more.

0:14:07.000,0:14:10.000
And the main thing that I would really ask all of you

0:14:10.000,0:14:13.000
as you go back to your countries, or as you stay here:

0:14:13.000,0:14:17.000
ask your government for an integrated food policy.

0:14:17.000,0:14:20.000
Food is as important as energy,

0:14:20.000,0:14:22.000
as security, as the environment.

0:14:22.000,0:14:24.000
Everything is linked together.

0:14:24.000,0:14:27.000
So we can do that. In fact in a densely populated country

0:14:27.000,0:14:30.000
like the River Delta, where I live in the Netherlands,

0:14:30.000,0:14:32.000
we have combined these functions.

0:14:32.000,0:14:35.000
So this is not science fiction. We can combine things

0:14:35.000,0:14:37.000
even in a social sense of making

0:14:37.000,0:14:39.000
the rural areas more accessible to people --

0:14:39.000,0:14:42.000
to house, for example, the chronically sick.

0:14:42.000,0:14:44.000
There is all kinds of things we can do.

0:14:44.000,0:14:47.000
But there is something you must do. It's not enough for me to say,

0:14:47.000,0:14:50.000
"Let's get more bold science into agriculture."

0:14:50.000,0:14:52.000
You must go back

0:14:52.000,0:14:54.000
and think about your own food chain.

0:14:54.000,0:14:56.000
Talk to farmers. When was the last time

0:14:56.000,0:14:58.000
you went to a farm and talked to a farmer?

0:14:58.000,0:15:00.000
Talk to people in restaurants.

0:15:00.000,0:15:02.000
Understand where you are in the food chain,

0:15:02.000,0:15:04.000
where your food comes from.

0:15:04.000,0:15:06.000
Understand that you are part

0:15:06.000,0:15:08.000
of this enormous chain of events.

0:15:08.000,0:15:11.000
And that frees you up to do other things.

0:15:11.000,0:15:15.000
And above all, to me, food is about respect.

0:15:15.000,0:15:17.000
It's about understanding, when you eat,

0:15:17.000,0:15:21.000
that there are also many people who are still in this situation,

0:15:21.000,0:15:24.000
who are still struggling for their daily food.

0:15:24.000,0:15:27.000
And the kind of simplistic solutions that we sometimes have,

0:15:27.000,0:15:29.000
to think that doing everything by hand

0:15:29.000,0:15:31.000
is going to be the solution,

0:15:31.000,0:15:34.000
is really not morally justified.

0:15:34.000,0:15:36.000
We need to help to lift them out of poverty.

0:15:36.000,0:15:40.000
We need to make them proud of being a farmer

0:15:40.000,0:15:43.000
because they allow us to survive.

0:15:43.000,0:15:45.000
Never before, as I said,

0:15:45.000,0:15:47.000
has the responsibility for food

0:15:47.000,0:15:49.000
been in the hands of so few.

0:15:49.000,0:15:51.000
And never before have we had the luxury

0:15:51.000,0:15:53.000
of taking it for granted

0:15:53.000,0:15:56.000
because it is now so cheap.

0:15:56.000,0:15:58.000
And I think there is nobody else who has expressed

0:15:58.000,0:16:02.000
better, to me, the idea that food, in the end,

0:16:02.000,0:16:05.000
in our own tradition, is something holy.

0:16:05.000,0:16:07.000
It's not about nutrients and calories.

0:16:07.000,0:16:11.000
It's about sharing. It's about honesty. It's about identity.

0:16:11.000,0:16:14.000
Who said this so beautifully was Mahatma Gandhi,

0:16:14.000,0:16:17.000
75 years ago, when he spoke about bread.

0:16:17.000,0:16:20.000
He did not speak about rice, in India. He said,

0:16:20.000,0:16:24.000
"To those who have to go without two meals a day,

0:16:24.000,0:16:27.000
God can only appear as bread."

0:16:27.000,0:16:31.000
And so as I'm finishing my bread here --

0:16:31.000,0:16:35.000
and I've been baking it, and I'll try not to burn my hands.

0:16:35.000,0:16:37.000
Let me share

0:16:37.000,0:16:39.000
with those of you here in the first row.

0:16:39.000,0:16:41.000
Let me share some of the food with you.

0:16:41.000,0:16:43.000
Take some of my bread.

0:16:43.000,0:16:46.000
And as you eat it, and as you try it --

0:16:46.000,0:16:48.000
please come and stand up.

0:16:48.000,0:16:50.000
Have some of it.

0:16:50.000,0:16:53.000
I want you to think that every bite connects you

0:16:53.000,0:16:55.000
to the past and the future:

0:16:55.000,0:16:57.000
to these anonymous farmers,

0:16:57.000,0:17:01.000
that first bred the first wheat varieties;

0:17:01.000,0:17:03.000
and to the farmers of today,

0:17:03.000,0:17:06.000
who've been making this. And you don't even know who they are.

0:17:06.000,0:17:08.000
Every meal you eat

0:17:08.000,0:17:12.000
contains ingredients from all across the world.

0:17:12.000,0:17:15.000
Everything makes us so privileged,

0:17:15.000,0:17:18.000
that we can eat this food, that we don't struggle every day.

0:17:18.000,0:17:20.000
And that, I think,

0:17:20.000,0:17:22.000
evolutionarily-speaking is unique.

0:17:22.000,0:17:24.000
We've never had that before.

0:17:24.000,0:17:26.000
So enjoy your bread.

0:17:26.000,0:17:28.000
Eat it, and feel privileged.

0:17:28.000,0:17:30.000
Thank you very much.

0:17:30.000,0:17:42.000
(Applause)