We need to feed the whole world
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0:00 - 0:02I'm not at all a cook.
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0:02 - 0:05So don't fear, this is not going to be a cooking demonstration.
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0:05 - 0:07But I do want to talk to you about something
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0:07 - 0:10that I think is dear to all of us.
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0:10 - 0:13And that is bread -- something which is as simple
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0:13 - 0:17as our basic, most fundamental human staple.
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0:17 - 0:20And I think few of us spend the day
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0:20 - 0:23without eating bread in some form.
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0:23 - 0:27Unless you're on one of these Californian low-carb diets,
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0:27 - 0:29bread is standard.
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0:29 - 0:31Bread is not only standard in the Western diet.
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0:31 - 0:33As I will show to you, it is actually
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0:33 - 0:36the mainstay of modern life.
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0:36 - 0:38So I'm going to bake bread for you.
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0:38 - 0:41In the meantime I'm also talking to you,
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0:41 - 0:44so my life is going to complicated. Bear with me.
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0:44 - 0:48First of all, a little bit of audience participation.
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0:48 - 0:51I have two loaves of bread here.
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0:51 - 0:54One is a supermarket standard:
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0:54 - 0:56white bread, pre-packaged,
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0:56 - 0:59which I'm told is called a Wonderbread.
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0:59 - 1:00(Laughter)
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1:00 - 1:02I didn't know this word until I arrived.
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1:02 - 1:05And this is more or less,
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1:05 - 1:07a whole-meal, handmade,
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1:07 - 1:09small-bakery loaf of bread.
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1:09 - 1:12Here we go. I want to see a show of hands.
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1:12 - 1:17Who prefers the whole-meal bread?
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1:17 - 1:21Okay let me do this differently. Is anybody preferring the Wonderbread at all?
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1:21 - 1:22(Laughter)
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1:22 - 1:26I have two tentative male hands.
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1:26 - 1:29(Laughter)
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1:29 - 1:32Okay, now the question is really,
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1:32 - 1:34why is this so?
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1:34 - 1:36And I think it is because
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1:36 - 1:39we feel that this kind of bread
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1:39 - 1:42really is about authenticity.
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1:42 - 1:45It's about a traditional way of living.
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1:45 - 1:49A way that is perhaps more real, more honest.
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1:49 - 1:52This is an image from Tuscany, where we feel
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1:52 - 1:54agriculture is still about beauty.
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1:54 - 1:56And life is really, too.
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1:56 - 2:00And this is about good taste, good traditions.
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2:00 - 2:02Why do we have this image?
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2:02 - 2:07Why do we feel that this is more true than this?
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2:07 - 2:10Well I think it has a lot to do with our history.
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2:10 - 2:13In the 10,000 years since agriculture evolved,
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2:13 - 2:17most of our ancestors have actually been agriculturalists
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2:17 - 2:20or they were closely related to food production.
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2:20 - 2:22And we have this mythical image
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2:22 - 2:26of how life was in rural areas in the past.
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2:26 - 2:29Art has helped us to maintain that kind of image.
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2:29 - 2:32It was a mythical past.
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2:32 - 2:34Of course, the reality is quite different.
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2:34 - 2:36These poor farmers
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2:36 - 2:38working the land by hand or with their animals,
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2:38 - 2:41had yield levels that are comparable
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2:41 - 2:44to the poorest farmers today in West Africa.
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2:44 - 2:46But we have, somehow,
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2:46 - 2:50in the course of the last few centuries, or even decades,
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2:50 - 2:52started to cultivate an image of
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2:52 - 2:56a mythical, rural agricultural past.
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2:56 - 2:58It was only 200 years ago
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2:58 - 3:01that we had the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
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3:01 - 3:04And while I'm starting to make some bread for you here,
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3:04 - 3:06it's very important to understand
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3:06 - 3:09what that revolution did to us.
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3:09 - 3:15It brought us power. It brought us mechanization, fertilizers.
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3:15 - 3:17And it actually drove up our yields.
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3:17 - 3:21And even sort of horrible things, like picking beans by hand,
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3:21 - 3:24can now be done automatically.
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3:24 - 3:29All that is a real, great improvement, as we shall see.
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3:29 - 3:33Of course we also, particularly in the last decade,
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3:33 - 3:35managed to envelop the world
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3:35 - 3:38in a dense chain of supermarkets,
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3:38 - 3:41in a chain of global trade.
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3:41 - 3:43And it means that you now eat products,
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3:43 - 3:46which can come from all around the world.
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3:46 - 3:49That is the reality of our modern life.
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3:49 - 3:53Now you may prefer this loaf of bread.
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3:53 - 3:56Excuse my hands but this is how it is.
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3:56 - 3:59But actually the real relevant bread,
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3:59 - 4:03historically, is this white Wonder loaf.
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4:03 - 4:06And don't despise the white bread
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4:06 - 4:09because it really, I think,
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4:09 - 4:12symbolizes the fact that bread and food
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4:12 - 4:16have become plentiful and affordable to all.
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4:16 - 4:18And that is a feat that we
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4:18 - 4:21are not really conscious of that much.
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4:21 - 4:23But it has changed the world.
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4:23 - 4:26This tiny bread that is tasteless in some ways
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4:26 - 4:28and has a lot of problems
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4:28 - 4:31has changed the world.
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4:31 - 4:33So what is happening?
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4:33 - 4:37Well the best way to look at that is to do a tiny bit of simplistic statistics.
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4:37 - 4:40With the advent of the Industrial Revolution
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4:40 - 4:42with modernization of agriculture
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4:42 - 4:46in the last few decades, since the 1960s,
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4:46 - 4:49food availability, per head, in this world,
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4:49 - 4:52has increased by 25 percent.
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4:52 - 4:56And the world population in the meantime has doubled.
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4:56 - 4:59That means that we have now more food available
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4:59 - 5:01than ever before in human history.
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5:01 - 5:03And that is the result, directly,
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5:03 - 5:05of being so successful
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5:05 - 5:09at increasing the scale and volume of our production.
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5:09 - 5:12And this is true, as you can see, for all countries,
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5:12 - 5:14including the so-called developing countries.
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5:14 - 5:17What happened to our bread in the meantime?
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5:17 - 5:19As food became plentiful here,
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5:19 - 5:21it also meant that we were able to decrease
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5:21 - 5:25the number of people working in agriculture
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5:25 - 5:29to something like, on average, in the high income countries,
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5:29 - 5:33five percent or less of the population.
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5:33 - 5:37In the U.S. only one percent of the people are actually farmers.
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5:37 - 5:40And it frees us all up to do other things --
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5:40 - 5:43to sit at TED meetings and not to worry about our food.
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5:43 - 5:47That is, historically, a really unique situation.
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5:47 - 5:51Never before has the responsibility to feed the world
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5:51 - 5:53been in the hands of so few people.
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5:53 - 5:56And never before have so many people
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5:56 - 5:59been oblivious of that fact.
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5:59 - 6:03So as food became more plentiful, bread became cheaper.
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6:03 - 6:07And as it became cheaper, bread manufacturers decided to add in all kinds of things.
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6:07 - 6:09We added in more sugar.
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6:09 - 6:15We add in raisins and oil and milk
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6:15 - 6:17and all kinds of things to make bread,
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6:17 - 6:22from a simple food into kind of a support for calories.
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6:22 - 6:26And today, bread now is associated with obesity,
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6:26 - 6:28which is very strange.
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6:28 - 6:30It is the basic, most fundamental food
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6:30 - 6:33that we've had in the last ten thousand years.
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6:33 - 6:37Wheat is the most important crop -- the first crop we domesticated
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6:37 - 6:39and the most important crop we still grow today.
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6:39 - 6:42But this is now this strange concoction
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6:42 - 6:44of high calories.
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6:44 - 6:47And that's not only true in this country,
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6:47 - 6:49it is true all over the world.
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6:49 - 6:51Bread has migrated to tropical countries,
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6:51 - 6:55where the middle classes now eat French rolls and hamburgers
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6:55 - 6:58and where the commuters
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6:58 - 7:00find bread much more handy to use
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7:00 - 7:02than rice or cassava.
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7:02 - 7:06So bread has become from a main staple,
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7:06 - 7:08a source of calories
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7:08 - 7:10associated with obesity
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7:10 - 7:12and also a source of modernity,
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7:12 - 7:14of modern life.
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7:14 - 7:17And the whiter the bread, in many countries, the better it is.
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7:17 - 7:20So this is the story of bread as we know it now.
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7:20 - 7:24But of course the price of mass production
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7:24 - 7:27has been that we moved large-scale.
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7:27 - 7:31And large-scale has meant destruction of many of our landscapes,
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7:31 - 7:33destruction of biodiversity --
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7:33 - 7:35still a lonely emu here
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7:35 - 7:38in the Brazilian cerrado soybean fields.
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7:38 - 7:40The costs have been tremendous --
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7:40 - 7:44water pollution, all the things you know about, destruction of our habitats.
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7:44 - 7:49What we need to do is to go back to understanding what our food is about.
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7:49 - 7:51And this is where I have to query all of you.
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7:51 - 7:55How many of you can actually tell wheat apart from other cereals?
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7:55 - 7:58How many of you actually can make a bread
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7:58 - 8:01in this way, without starting with a bread machine
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8:01 - 8:05or just some kind of packaged flavor?
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8:05 - 8:09Can you actually bake bread? Do you know how much a loaf of bread actually costs?
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8:09 - 8:11We have become very removed
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8:11 - 8:13from what our bread really is,
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8:13 - 8:15which, again, evolutionarily speaking,
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8:15 - 8:17is very strange.
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8:17 - 8:19In fact not many of you know that
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8:19 - 8:21our bread, of course, was not a European invention.
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8:21 - 8:23It was invented by farmers in Iraq
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8:23 - 8:25and Syria in particular.
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8:25 - 8:28The tiny spike on the left to the center
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8:28 - 8:31is actually the forefather of wheat.
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8:31 - 8:33This is where it all comes from,
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8:33 - 8:36and where these farmers who actually, ten thousand years ago,
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8:36 - 8:39put us on the road of bread.
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8:39 - 8:41Now it is not surprising
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8:41 - 8:44that with this massification and large-scale production,
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8:44 - 8:46there is a counter-movement that emerged --
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8:46 - 8:48very much also here in California.
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8:48 - 8:51The counter-movement says, "Let's go back to this.
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8:51 - 8:53Let's go back to traditional farming.
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8:53 - 8:57Let's go back to small-scale, to farmers' markets,
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8:57 - 9:00small bakeries and all that." Wonderful.
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9:00 - 9:02Don't we all agree? I certainly agree.
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9:02 - 9:04I would love to go back to Tuscany
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9:04 - 9:06to this kind of traditional setting,
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9:06 - 9:08gastronomy, good food.
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9:08 - 9:10But this is a fallacy.
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9:10 - 9:13And the fallacy comes from idealizing
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9:13 - 9:16a past that we have forgotten about.
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9:16 - 9:20If we do this, if we want to stay with traditional small-scale farming
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9:20 - 9:23we are going, actually, to relegate
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9:23 - 9:26these poor farmers and their husbands --
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9:26 - 9:28among whom I have lived for many years,
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9:28 - 9:31working without electricity and water, to try to improve their food production --
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9:31 - 9:34we relegate them to poverty.
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9:34 - 9:36What they want are implements
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9:36 - 9:38to increase their production:
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9:38 - 9:40something to fertilize the soil,
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9:40 - 9:43something to protect their crop and to bring it to a market.
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9:43 - 9:45We cannot just think that small-scale
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9:45 - 9:48is the solution to the world food problem.
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9:48 - 9:51It's a luxury solution for us who can afford it,
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9:51 - 9:53if you want to afford it.
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9:53 - 9:55In fact we do not want this poor woman
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9:55 - 9:57to work the land like this.
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9:57 - 9:59If we say just small-scale production,
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9:59 - 10:01as is the tendency here,
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10:01 - 10:04to go back to local food means that a poor man like Hans Rosling
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10:04 - 10:06cannot even eat oranges anymore
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10:06 - 10:09because in Scandinavia we don't have oranges.
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10:09 - 10:11So local food production is out.
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10:11 - 10:13But also we do not want
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10:13 - 10:16to relegate to poverty in the rural areas.
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10:16 - 10:18And we do not want to relegate
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10:18 - 10:21the urban poor to starvation.
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10:21 - 10:24So we must find other solutions.
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10:24 - 10:26One of our problems is that world food production
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10:26 - 10:28needs to increase very rapidly --
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10:28 - 10:31doubling by about 2030.
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10:31 - 10:34The main driver of that is actually meat.
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10:34 - 10:37And meat consumption in Southeast Asia and China in particular
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10:37 - 10:42is what drives the prices of cereals.
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10:42 - 10:46That need for animal protein is going to continue.
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10:46 - 10:49We can discuss alternatives in another talk, perhaps one day,
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10:49 - 10:51but this is our driving force.
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10:51 - 10:53So what can we do?
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10:53 - 10:57Can we find a solution to produce more?
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10:57 - 11:01Yes. But we need mechanization.
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11:01 - 11:03And I'm making a real plea here.
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11:03 - 11:07I feel so strongly that you cannot ask a small farmer
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11:07 - 11:10to work the land and bend over to grow a hectare of rice,
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11:10 - 11:14150,000 times, just to plant a crop and weed it.
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11:14 - 11:17You cannot ask people to work under these conditions.
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11:17 - 11:20We need clever low-key mechanization
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11:20 - 11:24that avoids the problems of the large-scale mechanization that we've had.
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11:24 - 11:26So what can we do?
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11:26 - 11:29We must feed three billion people in cities.
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11:29 - 11:31We will not do that through small farmers' markets
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11:31 - 11:35because these people have no small farmers' markets at their disposal.
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11:35 - 11:38They have low incomes. And they benefit
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11:38 - 11:41from cheap, affordable, safe and diverse food.
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11:41 - 11:44That's what we must aim for in the next 20 to 30 years.
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11:44 - 11:46But yes there are some solutions.
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11:46 - 11:50And let me just do one simple conceptual thing:
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11:50 - 11:53if I plot science as a proxy
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11:53 - 11:57for control of the production process and scale.
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11:57 - 11:59What you see is that we've started
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11:59 - 12:02in the left-hand corner with traditional agriculture,
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12:02 - 12:05which was sort of small-scale and low-control.
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12:05 - 12:09We've moved towards large-scale and very high control.
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12:09 - 12:14What I want us to do is to keep up the science and even get more science in there
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12:14 - 12:16but go to a kind of regional scale --
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12:16 - 12:18not just in terms of the scale of the fields,
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12:18 - 12:21but in terms of the entire food network.
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12:21 - 12:23That's where we should move.
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12:23 - 12:26And the ultimate may be, but it doesn't apply to cereals,
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12:26 - 12:29that we have entirely closed ecosystems --
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12:29 - 12:33the horticultural systems right at the top left-hand corner.
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12:33 - 12:37So we need to think differently about agriculture science.
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12:37 - 12:39Agriculture science for most people -- and there are not many farmers
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12:39 - 12:41among you here --
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12:41 - 12:44has this name of being bad,
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12:44 - 12:46of being about pollution, about large-scale,
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12:46 - 12:48about the destruction of the environment.
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12:48 - 12:50That is not necessary.
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12:50 - 12:53We need more science and not less. And we need good science.
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12:53 - 12:55So what kind of science can we have?
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12:55 - 12:57Well first of all I think
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12:57 - 13:00we can do much better on the existing technologies.
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13:00 - 13:02Use biotechnology where useful,
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13:02 - 13:05particularly in pest and disease resistance.
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13:05 - 13:07There are also robots, for example,
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13:07 - 13:09who can recognize weeds
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13:09 - 13:12with a resolution of half an inch.
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13:12 - 13:14We have much cleverer irrigation.
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13:14 - 13:18We do not need to spill the water if we don't want to.
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13:18 - 13:21And we need to think very dispassionately
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13:21 - 13:23about the comparative advantages
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13:23 - 13:26of small-scale and large-scale.
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13:26 - 13:28We need to think that land is multi-functional.
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13:28 - 13:30It has different functions.
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13:30 - 13:33There are different ways in which we must use it --
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13:33 - 13:36for residential, for nature, for agriculture purposes.
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13:36 - 13:39And we also need to re-examine livestock.
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13:39 - 13:42Go regional and go to urban food systems.
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13:42 - 13:46I want to see fish ponds in parking lots and basements.
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13:46 - 13:48I want to have horticulture
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13:48 - 13:51and greenhouses on top of residential areas.
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13:51 - 13:54And I want to use the energy that comes from those greenhouses
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13:54 - 13:56and from the fermentation of crops
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13:56 - 13:58to heat our residential areas.
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13:58 - 14:00There are all kinds of ways we can do it.
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14:00 - 14:02We cannot solve the world food problem
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14:02 - 14:04by using biological agriculture.
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14:04 - 14:07But we can do a lot more.
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14:07 - 14:10And the main thing that I would really ask all of you
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14:10 - 14:13as you go back to your countries, or as you stay here:
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14:13 - 14:17ask your government for an integrated food policy.
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14:17 - 14:20Food is as important as energy,
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14:20 - 14:22as security, as the environment.
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14:22 - 14:24Everything is linked together.
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14:24 - 14:27So we can do that. In fact in a densely populated country
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14:27 - 14:30like the River Delta, where I live in the Netherlands,
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14:30 - 14:32we have combined these functions.
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14:32 - 14:35So this is not science fiction. We can combine things
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14:35 - 14:37even in a social sense of making
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14:37 - 14:39the rural areas more accessible to people --
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14:39 - 14:42to house, for example, the chronically sick.
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14:42 - 14:44There is all kinds of things we can do.
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14:44 - 14:47But there is something you must do. It's not enough for me to say,
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14:47 - 14:50"Let's get more bold science into agriculture."
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14:50 - 14:52You must go back
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14:52 - 14:54and think about your own food chain.
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14:54 - 14:56Talk to farmers. When was the last time
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14:56 - 14:58you went to a farm and talked to a farmer?
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14:58 - 15:00Talk to people in restaurants.
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15:00 - 15:02Understand where you are in the food chain,
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15:02 - 15:04where your food comes from.
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15:04 - 15:06Understand that you are part
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15:06 - 15:08of this enormous chain of events.
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15:08 - 15:11And that frees you up to do other things.
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15:11 - 15:15And above all, to me, food is about respect.
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15:15 - 15:17It's about understanding, when you eat,
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15:17 - 15:21that there are also many people who are still in this situation,
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15:21 - 15:24who are still struggling for their daily food.
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15:24 - 15:27And the kind of simplistic solutions that we sometimes have,
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15:27 - 15:29to think that doing everything by hand
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15:29 - 15:31is going to be the solution,
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15:31 - 15:34is really not morally justified.
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15:34 - 15:36We need to help to lift them out of poverty.
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15:36 - 15:40We need to make them proud of being a farmer
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15:40 - 15:43because they allow us to survive.
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15:43 - 15:45Never before, as I said,
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15:45 - 15:47has the responsibility for food
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15:47 - 15:49been in the hands of so few.
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15:49 - 15:51And never before have we had the luxury
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15:51 - 15:53of taking it for granted
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15:53 - 15:56because it is now so cheap.
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15:56 - 15:58And I think there is nobody else who has expressed
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15:58 - 16:02better, to me, the idea that food, in the end,
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16:02 - 16:05in our own tradition, is something holy.
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16:05 - 16:07It's not about nutrients and calories.
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16:07 - 16:11It's about sharing. It's about honesty. It's about identity.
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16:11 - 16:14Who said this so beautifully was Mahatma Gandhi,
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16:14 - 16:1775 years ago, when he spoke about bread.
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16:17 - 16:20He did not speak about rice, in India. He said,
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16:20 - 16:24"To those who have to go without two meals a day,
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16:24 - 16:27God can only appear as bread."
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16:27 - 16:31And so as I'm finishing my bread here --
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16:31 - 16:35and I've been baking it, and I'll try not to burn my hands.
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16:35 - 16:37Let me share
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16:37 - 16:39with those of you here in the first row.
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16:39 - 16:41Let me share some of the food with you.
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16:41 - 16:43Take some of my bread.
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16:43 - 16:46And as you eat it, and as you try it --
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16:46 - 16:48please come and stand up.
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16:48 - 16:50Have some of it.
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16:50 - 16:53I want you to think that every bite connects you
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16:53 - 16:55to the past and the future:
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16:55 - 16:57to these anonymous farmers,
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16:57 - 17:01that first bred the first wheat varieties;
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17:01 - 17:03and to the farmers of today,
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17:03 - 17:06who've been making this. And you don't even know who they are.
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17:06 - 17:08Every meal you eat
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17:08 - 17:12contains ingredients from all across the world.
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17:12 - 17:15Everything makes us so privileged,
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17:15 - 17:18that we can eat this food, that we don't struggle every day.
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17:18 - 17:20And that, I think,
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17:20 - 17:22evolutionarily-speaking is unique.
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17:22 - 17:24We've never had that before.
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17:24 - 17:26So enjoy your bread.
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17:26 - 17:28Eat it, and feel privileged.
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17:28 - 17:30Thank you very much.
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17:30 - 17:42(Applause)
- Title:
- We need to feed the whole world
- Speaker:
- Louise Fresco
- Description:
-
Louise Fresco shows us why we should celebrate mass-produced, supermarket-style white bread. She says environmentally sound mass production will feed the world, yet leave a role for small bakeries and traditional methods.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 17:46
Helene Batt edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Jenny Zurawell approved English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Néstor Noziglia accepted English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Yan SU edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Yan SU edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world | ||
Tzhe'ela Trooper edited English subtitles for We need to feed the whole world |