1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 I'm not at all a cook. 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:05,000 So don't fear, this is not going to be a cooking demonstration. 3 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,000 But I do want to talk to you about something 4 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,000 that I think is dear to all of us. 5 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 And that is bread -- something which is as simple 6 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000 as our basic, most fundamental human staple. 7 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,000 And I think few of us spend the day 8 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 without eating bread in some form. 9 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,000 Unless you're on one of these Californian low-carb diets, 10 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,000 bread is standard. 11 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:31,000 Bread is not only standard in the Western diet. 12 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,000 As I will show to you, it is actually 13 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,000 the mainstay of modern life. 14 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,000 So I'm going to bake bread for you. 15 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,000 In the meantime I'm also talking to you, 16 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,000 so my life is going to be complicated. Bear with me. 17 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:48,000 First of all, a little bit of audience participation. 18 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,000 I have two loaves of bread here. 19 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,000 One is a supermarket standard: 20 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:56,000 white bread, pre-packaged, 21 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,000 which I'm told is called a Wonderbread. 22 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:00,000 (Laughter) 23 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,000 I didn't know this word until I arrived. 24 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:05,000 And this is more or less, 25 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,000 a whole-meal, handmade, 26 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,000 small-bakery loaf of bread. 27 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:12,000 Here we go. I want to see a show of hands. 28 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Who prefers the whole-meal bread? 29 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000 Okay let me do this differently. Is anybody preferring the Wonderbread at all? 30 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:22,000 (Laughter) 31 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000 I have two tentative male hands. 32 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:29,000 (Laughter) 33 00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000 Okay, now the question is really, 34 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000 why is this so? 35 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,000 And I think it is because 36 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,000 we feel that this kind of bread 37 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,000 really is about authenticity. 38 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,000 It's about a traditional way of living. 39 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,000 A way that is perhaps more real, more honest. 40 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,000 This is an image from Tuscany, where we feel 41 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000 agriculture is still about beauty. 42 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000 And life is really, too. 43 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,000 And this is about good taste, good traditions. 44 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Why do we have this image? 45 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:07,000 Why do we feel that this is more true than this? 46 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:10,000 Well I think it has a lot to do with our history. 47 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:13,000 In the 10,000 years since agriculture evolved, 48 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:17,000 most of our ancestors have actually been agriculturalists 49 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:20,000 or they were closely related to food production. 50 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000 And we have this mythical image 51 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 of how life was in rural areas in the past. 52 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,000 Art has helped us to maintain that kind of image. 53 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,000 It was a mythical past. 54 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,000 Of course, the reality is quite different. 55 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,000 These poor farmers 56 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:38,000 working the land by hand or with their animals, 57 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,000 had yield levels that are comparable 58 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,000 to the poorest farmers today in West Africa. 59 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,000 But we have, somehow, 60 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:50,000 in the course of the last few centuries, or even decades, 61 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:52,000 started to cultivate an image of 62 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,000 a mythical, rural agricultural past. 63 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:58,000 It was only 200 years ago 64 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,000 that we had the advent of the Industrial Revolution. 65 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:04,000 And while I'm starting to make some bread for you here, 66 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 it's very important to understand 67 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000 what that revolution did to us. 68 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:15,000 It brought us power. It brought us mechanization, fertilizers. 69 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,000 And it actually drove up our yields. 70 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,000 And even sort of horrible things, like picking beans by hand, 71 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:24,000 can now be done automatically. 72 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:29,000 All that is a real, great improvement, as we shall see. 73 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:33,000 Of course we also, particularly in the last decade, 74 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,000 managed to envelop the world 75 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,000 in a dense chain of supermarkets, 76 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000 in a chain of global trade. 77 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,000 And it means that you now eat products, 78 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,000 which can come from all around the world. 79 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,000 That is the reality of our modern life. 80 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:53,000 Now you may prefer this loaf of bread. 81 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 Excuse my hands but this is how it is. 82 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,000 But actually the real relevant bread, 83 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,000 historically, is this white Wonder loaf. 84 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:06,000 And don't despise the white bread 85 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:09,000 because it really, I think, 86 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,000 symbolizes the fact that bread and food 87 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:16,000 have become plentiful and affordable to all. 88 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:18,000 And that is a feat that we 89 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,000 are not really conscious of that much. 90 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,000 But it has changed the world. 91 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 This tiny bread that is tasteless in some ways 92 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:28,000 and has a lot of problems 93 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,000 has changed the world. 94 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:33,000 So what is happening? 95 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:37,000 Well the best way to look at that is to do a tiny bit of simplistic statistics. 96 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,000 With the advent of the Industrial Revolution 97 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 with modernization of agriculture 98 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:46,000 in the last few decades, since the 1960s, 99 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,000 food availability, per head, in this world, 100 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:52,000 has increased by 25 percent. 101 00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:56,000 And the world population in the meantime has doubled. 102 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,000 That means that we have now more food available 103 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,000 than ever before in human history. 104 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:03,000 And that is the result, directly, 105 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:05,000 of being so successful 106 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:09,000 at increasing the scale and volume of our production. 107 00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:12,000 And this is true, as you can see, for all countries, 108 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:14,000 including the so-called developing countries. 109 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,000 What happened to our bread in the meantime? 110 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:19,000 As food became plentiful here, 111 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,000 it also meant that we were able to decrease 112 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:25,000 the number of people working in agriculture 113 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,000 to something like, on average, in the high income countries, 114 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,000 five percent or less of the population. 115 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:37,000 In the U.S. only one percent of the people are actually farmers. 116 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,000 And it frees us all up to do other things -- 117 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:43,000 to sit at TED meetings and not to worry about our food. 118 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:47,000 That is, historically, a really unique situation. 119 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:51,000 Never before has the responsibility to feed the world 120 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,000 been in the hands of so few people. 121 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,000 And never before have so many people 122 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,000 been oblivious of that fact. 123 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:03,000 So as food became more plentiful, bread became cheaper. 124 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,000 And as it became cheaper, bread manufacturers decided to add in all kinds of things. 125 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:09,000 We added in more sugar. 126 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:15,000 We add in raisins and oil and milk 127 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,000 and all kinds of things to make bread, 128 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000 from a simple food into kind of a support for calories. 129 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:26,000 And today, bread now is associated with obesity, 130 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,000 which is very strange. 131 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,000 It is the basic, most fundamental food 132 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,000 that we've had in the last ten thousand years. 133 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:37,000 Wheat is the most important crop -- the first crop we domesticated 134 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,000 and the most important crop we still grow today. 135 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,000 But this is now this strange concoction 136 00:06:42,000 --> 00:06:44,000 of high calories. 137 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:47,000 And that's not only true in this country, 138 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:49,000 it is true all over the world. 139 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,000 Bread has migrated to tropical countries, 140 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,000 where the middle classes now eat French rolls and hamburgers 141 00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,000 and where the commuters 142 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,000 find bread much more handy to use 143 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:02,000 than rice or cassava. 144 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:06,000 So bread has become from a main staple, 145 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,000 a source of calories 146 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,000 associated with obesity 147 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:12,000 and also a source of modernity, 148 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:14,000 of modern life. 149 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,000 And the whiter the bread, in many countries, the better it is. 150 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:20,000 So this is the story of bread as we know it now. 151 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 But of course the price of mass production 152 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000 has been that we moved large-scale. 153 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:31,000 And large-scale has meant destruction of many of our landscapes, 154 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,000 destruction of biodiversity -- 155 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,000 still a lonely emu here 156 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,000 in the Brazilian cerrado soybean fields. 157 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,000 The costs have been tremendous -- 158 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:44,000 water pollution, all the things you know about, destruction of our habitats. 159 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:49,000 What we need to do is to go back to understanding what our food is about. 160 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:51,000 And this is where I have to query all of you. 161 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:55,000 How many of you can actually tell wheat apart from other cereals? 162 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,000 How many of you actually can make a bread 163 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:01,000 in this way, without starting with a bread machine 164 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:05,000 or just some kind of packaged flavor? 165 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:09,000 Can you actually bake bread? Do you know how much a loaf of bread actually costs? 166 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,000 We have become very removed 167 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,000 from what our bread really is, 168 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,000 which, again, evolutionarily speaking, 169 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:17,000 is very strange. 170 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,000 In fact not many of you know that 171 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:21,000 our bread, of course, was not a European invention. 172 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:23,000 It was invented by farmers in Iraq 173 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,000 and Syria in particular. 174 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,000 The tiny spike on the left to the center 175 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 is actually the forefather of wheat. 176 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 This is where it all comes from, 177 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,000 and where these farmers who actually, ten thousand years ago, 178 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,000 put us on the road of bread. 179 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,000 Now it is not surprising 180 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000 that with this massification and large-scale production, 181 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:46,000 there is a counter-movement that emerged -- 182 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:48,000 very much also here in California. 183 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:51,000 The counter-movement says, "Let's go back to this. 184 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,000 Let's go back to traditional farming. 185 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:57,000 Let's go back to small-scale, to farmers' markets, 186 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,000 small bakeries and all that." Wonderful. 187 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,000 Don't we all agree? I certainly agree. 188 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,000 I would love to go back to Tuscany 189 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:06,000 to this kind of traditional setting, 190 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,000 gastronomy, good food. 191 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:10,000 But this is a fallacy. 192 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:13,000 And the fallacy comes from idealizing 193 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,000 a past that we have forgotten about. 194 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:20,000 If we do this, if we want to stay with traditional small-scale farming 195 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,000 we are going, actually, to relegate 196 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:26,000 these poor farmers and their husbands -- 197 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,000 among whom I have lived for many years, 198 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,000 working without electricity and water, to try to improve their food production -- 199 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:34,000 we relegate them to poverty. 200 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,000 What they want are implements 201 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:38,000 to increase their production: 202 00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:40,000 something to fertilize the soil, 203 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:43,000 something to protect their crop and to bring it to a market. 204 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,000 We cannot just think that small-scale 205 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,000 is the solution to the world food problem. 206 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 It's a luxury solution for us who can afford it, 207 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:53,000 if you want to afford it. 208 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:55,000 In fact we do not want this poor woman 209 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:57,000 to work the land like this. 210 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:59,000 If we say just small-scale production, 211 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,000 as is the tendency here, 212 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:04,000 to go back to local food means that a poor man like Hans Rosling 213 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:06,000 cannot even eat oranges anymore 214 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,000 because in Scandinavia we don't have oranges. 215 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,000 So local food production is out. 216 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:13,000 But also we do not want 217 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,000 to relegate to poverty in the rural areas. 218 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,000 And we do not want to relegate 219 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:21,000 the urban poor to starvation. 220 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:24,000 So we must find other solutions. 221 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:26,000 One of our problems is that world food production 222 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:28,000 needs to increase very rapidly -- 223 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:31,000 doubling by about 2030. 224 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,000 The main driver of that is actually meat. 225 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:37,000 And meat consumption in Southeast Asia and China in particular 226 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:42,000 is what drives the prices of cereals. 227 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:46,000 That need for animal protein is going to continue. 228 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,000 We can discuss alternatives in another talk, perhaps one day, 229 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000 but this is our driving force. 230 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:53,000 So what can we do? 231 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:57,000 Can we find a solution to produce more? 232 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:01,000 Yes. But we need mechanization. 233 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:03,000 And I'm making a real plea here. 234 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:07,000 I feel so strongly that you cannot ask a small farmer 235 00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:10,000 to work the land and bend over to grow a hectare of rice, 236 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:14,000 150,000 times, just to plant a crop and weed it. 237 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,000 You cannot ask people to work under these conditions. 238 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:20,000 We need clever low-key mechanization 239 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:24,000 that avoids the problems of the large-scale mechanization that we've had. 240 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,000 So what can we do? 241 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,000 We must feed three billion people in cities. 242 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,000 We will not do that through small farmers' markets 243 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:35,000 because these people have no small farmers' markets at their disposal. 244 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:38,000 They have low incomes. And they benefit 245 00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:41,000 from cheap, affordable, safe and diverse food. 246 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,000 That's what we must aim for in the next 20 to 30 years. 247 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:46,000 But yes there are some solutions. 248 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:50,000 And let me just do one simple conceptual thing: 249 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:53,000 if I plot science as a proxy 250 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:57,000 for control of the production process and scale. 251 00:11:57,000 --> 00:11:59,000 What you see is that we've started 252 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:02,000 in the left-hand corner with traditional agriculture, 253 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,000 which was sort of small-scale and low-control. 254 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,000 We've moved towards large-scale and very high control. 255 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:14,000 What I want us to do is to keep up the science and even get more science in there 256 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:16,000 but go to a kind of regional scale -- 257 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:18,000 not just in terms of the scale of the fields, 258 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:21,000 but in terms of the entire food network. 259 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:23,000 That's where we should move. 260 00:12:23,000 --> 00:12:26,000 And the ultimate may be, but it doesn't apply to cereals, 261 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,000 that we have entirely closed ecosystems -- 262 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,000 the horticultural systems right at the top left-hand corner. 263 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:37,000 So we need to think differently about agriculture science. 264 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:39,000 Agriculture science for most people -- and there are not many farmers 265 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:41,000 among you here -- 266 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:44,000 has this name of being bad, 267 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:46,000 of being about pollution, about large-scale, 268 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:48,000 about the destruction of the environment. 269 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:50,000 That is not necessary. 270 00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:53,000 We need more science and not less. And we need good science. 271 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:55,000 So what kind of science can we have? 272 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,000 Well first of all I think 273 00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:00,000 we can do much better on the existing technologies. 274 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:02,000 Use biotechnology where useful, 275 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:05,000 particularly in pest and disease resistance. 276 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:07,000 There are also robots, for example, 277 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:09,000 who can recognize weeds 278 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,000 with a resolution of half an inch. 279 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,000 We have much cleverer irrigation. 280 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:18,000 We do not need to spill the water if we don't want to. 281 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,000 And we need to think very dispassionately 282 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,000 about the comparative advantages 283 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:26,000 of small-scale and large-scale. 284 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:28,000 We need to think that land is multi-functional. 285 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,000 It has different functions. 286 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,000 There are different ways in which we must use it -- 287 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,000 for residential, for nature, for agriculture purposes. 288 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:39,000 And we also need to re-examine livestock. 289 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:42,000 Go regional and go to urban food systems. 290 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:46,000 I want to see fish ponds in parking lots and basements. 291 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:48,000 I want to have horticulture 292 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,000 and greenhouses on top of residential areas. 293 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:54,000 And I want to use the energy that comes from those greenhouses 294 00:13:54,000 --> 00:13:56,000 and from the fermentation of crops 295 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,000 to heat our residential areas. 296 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:00,000 There are all kinds of ways we can do it. 297 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:02,000 We cannot solve the world food problem 298 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:04,000 by using biological agriculture. 299 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:07,000 But we can do a lot more. 300 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:10,000 And the main thing that I would really ask all of you 301 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:13,000 as you go back to your countries, or as you stay here: 302 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:17,000 ask your government for an integrated food policy. 303 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,000 Food is as important as energy, 304 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:22,000 as security, as the environment. 305 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:24,000 Everything is linked together. 306 00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:27,000 So we can do that. In fact in a densely populated country 307 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:30,000 like the River Delta, where I live in the Netherlands, 308 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:32,000 we have combined these functions. 309 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,000 So this is not science fiction. We can combine things 310 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:37,000 even in a social sense of making 311 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,000 the rural areas more accessible to people -- 312 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,000 to house, for example, the chronically sick. 313 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:44,000 There is all kinds of things we can do. 314 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:47,000 But there is something you must do. It's not enough for me to say, 315 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:50,000 "Let's get more bold science into agriculture." 316 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,000 You must go back 317 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,000 and think about your own food chain. 318 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,000 Talk to farmers. When was the last time 319 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:58,000 you went to a farm and talked to a farmer? 320 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,000 Talk to people in restaurants. 321 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,000 Understand where you are in the food chain, 322 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:04,000 where your food comes from. 323 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,000 Understand that you are part 324 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:08,000 of this enormous chain of events. 325 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:11,000 And that frees you up to do other things. 326 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:15,000 And above all, to me, food is about respect. 327 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,000 It's about understanding, when you eat, 328 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:21,000 that there are also many people who are still in this situation, 329 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:24,000 who are still struggling for their daily food. 330 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:27,000 And the kind of simplistic solutions that we sometimes have, 331 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:29,000 to think that doing everything by hand 332 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,000 is going to be the solution, 333 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,000 is really not morally justified. 334 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,000 We need to help to lift them out of poverty. 335 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,000 We need to make them proud of being a farmer 336 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,000 because they allow us to survive. 337 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,000 Never before, as I said, 338 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:47,000 has the responsibility for food 339 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,000 been in the hands of so few. 340 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,000 And never before have we had the luxury 341 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:53,000 of taking it for granted 342 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,000 because it is now so cheap. 343 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,000 And I think there is nobody else who has expressed 344 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:02,000 better, to me, the idea that food, in the end, 345 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:05,000 in our own tradition, is something holy. 346 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,000 It's not about nutrients and calories. 347 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:11,000 It's about sharing. It's about honesty. It's about identity. 348 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:14,000 Who said this so beautifully was Mahatma Gandhi, 349 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:17,000 75 years ago, when he spoke about bread. 350 00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:20,000 He did not speak about rice, in India. He said, 351 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:24,000 "To those who have to go without two meals a day, 352 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,000 God can only appear as bread." 353 00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:31,000 And so as I'm finishing my bread here -- 354 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:35,000 and I've been baking it, and I'll try not to burn my hands. 355 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:37,000 Let me share 356 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:39,000 with those of you here in the first row. 357 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:41,000 Let me share some of the food with you. 358 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,000 Take some of my bread. 359 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,000 And as you eat it, and as you try it -- 360 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,000 please come and stand up. 361 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:50,000 Have some of it. 362 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,000 I want you to think that every bite connects you 363 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:55,000 to the past and the future: 364 00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:57,000 to these anonymous farmers, 365 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,000 that first bred the first wheat varieties; 366 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:03,000 and to the farmers of today, 367 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,000 who've been making this. And you don't even know who they are. 368 00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:08,000 Every meal you eat 369 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,000 contains ingredients from all across the world. 370 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,000 Everything makes us so privileged, 371 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,000 that we can eat this food, that we don't struggle every day. 372 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,000 And that, I think, 373 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,000 evolutionarily-speaking is unique. 374 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:24,000 We've never had that before. 375 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:26,000 So enjoy your bread. 376 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:28,000 Eat it, and feel privileged. 377 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:30,000 Thank you very much. 378 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:42,000 (Applause)