FOA 220: Agricultural Solutions for Hunger and Poverty with Paul Winters of IFAD

Today’s episode has some really important perspective, especially for those of us who do not see the effects of persistent hunger and poverty on a daily basis. I have on the show Paul Winters, who is the Associate Vice-President of the Strategy and Knowledge Department of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 

IFAD is part of the United Nations and is the only UN agency or international financial institution that works exclusively in rural areas. They work in around 100 countries with the aim to eradicate rural poverty and hunger through agricultural development. 

Paul is an Agricultural Economist by training and holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley. 

The first half of our conversation focuses on what agricultural development looks like in practice, and Paul shares examples from several different countries. 

The second half of our conversation focuses on some of the major challenges to global food security, including the fact that global poverty was improving until about 2015. Since that time it’s actually been getting worse. We also talk about the catastrophic effects the Coronavirus pandemic and climate change can have on global food security in the future. 

For starters though, I’ll drop you into the conversation where Paul is talking about some of the challenges of trying to solve these complex problems.