Attendees are responsible for booking their own rooms at the New York Hilton Midtown. Room reservations made by Thursday, May 23, 2019 will be eligible for the group rate of $399.00 plus applicable taxes and fees for single or double occupancy. The negotiated group rate is based on availability and applies to reservations for Sunday, June 9, 2019 through Wednesday, June 12, 2019.
Should businesses expect to rethink Chinese sourcing strategies? Will Chinese firms face similar pressures?
Chaired by Senior Practice Lead Rebecca Park
The US has long been a major global actor in food production and the world’s largest agricultural exporter after the EU. The US is also the largest donor of food aid globally and the world’s largest provider of international food security aid, both in cash and kind. As the global strategic landscape shifts around them, US policymakers are inevitably asking how this global position might be a source of vulnerability or leverage.
The vulnerability comes in the way that US farmers rely on export markets to support demand and prices. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the US exports well over half of production of food grains and grain derivatives. US exports have grown sharply over the last twenty years, into high-value products. But there is limited scope for diversification within this.
US producers have found new markets in South East Asia, Central America and the two NAFTA partners and are less dependent on EU markets. But US politicians representing the interests of US agriculture remain notably invested (whether they know it or not) in the sustained appetite of the rest of the world.
Whether this position can be converted into something more is a problem that US policymakers have been considering since at least the 1960s. Since 1966, USAID aid under the Food for Peace program requires recipient country governments to propose “self-help” measures to improve food production. Especially after 2001, food insecurity has been seen in Washington as a potential security threat if it produces stressed and unstable societies in (from a US security perspective) the wrong places. Both covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have reduced incomes and disrupted food supply chains.
The number of severely food-insecure people today in the world has doubled from pre-pandemic levels and is now estimated by the World Food Programme to be over 300 million people.
This US position has some practical consequences. Any state that negotiates with the US on trade liberalization should expect a blunt focus on locking in and expanding US food markets. Most recently, the UK had this bruising experience – and it was enough to stall negotiations. The US will surely try and move into any space created by the disruption of Russian food exports. And recipients of US food aid will find themselves increasingly encouraged see this support as part of a wider geostrategic picture.
Our co-chairs, Peter Mandelson and Arancha González Laya were joined by senior U.S. policymakers, industry leaders, and the international community to discuss:
-- The key pinch points in global food supply chains and the risks they pose to global stability;
-- The domestic markets most threatened by food supply issues and the reasons why;
-- The steps needed to adapt this picture over the next few decades;
-- And finally, the policy solutions for addressing these risks.
We heard from:
-- Dr. Jewel Bronaugh, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture on the outlook for U.S. food diplomacy;
-- Mari Elka Pangestu, Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships, World Bank on trade policy and improving access to food;
-- Gargee Ghosh, President of Global Policy and Advocacy at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the role of the international community to foster food system resilience;
-- Ertharin Cousin, CEO of Food Systems for the Future and Executive Director of the World Food Programme (2012-2017)
Ramin Toloui, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Vanessa Stiffler-Claus, Vice President, International Affairs, John Deere; and Helga Flores Trejo, Vice President, International Public Policy, Bayer on policy solutions to address global food risks.
Global Counsel works with companies and investors across a wide range of sectors to anticipate the ways in which politics, regulation and public policymaking create both risk and opportunity – and to develop and implement strategies to meet these challenges.
From high-level in-conversations and policy webinars, to large scale conferences, our events draw from a network of government, industry, academia and civil society to foster debate and discussion.
