The Munk Debates Podcast - Munk Members-Only Pod: Season 2, Episode 22

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

This program provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. This week's Munk Members podcast focus on two stories in the news this week. First, there is a growing food shortage in the world. It looks likely to worsen in the months to come. What are the risks of political instability in the developing world as the crisis worsens? Could it expand beyond poor nations to countries like Brazil and India? Second, Canadian conservatives were shaken up this week with the resignation of Alberta premier Jason Kenney. Is this a sign that populism is taking over centre-right politics in Canada? And, what are we seeing in the national race for next Conservative Party leader in terms of populist thinking and ideas? To access the full length episode consider becoming a Munk Member. Membership is free. Simply log on to www.munkdebates.com/membership to register. Under your membership profile page you will find a link to listen to the full length editions of Munk Members Podcast. If you like what the Munk Debates is all about consider becoming a Supporting Member. For as little as $9.99 monthly you receive unlimited access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, monthly newsletter, ticketing privileges at our live and online events and a charitable tax receipt (for Canadian residents). To explore you Munk Membership options visit www.munkdebates.com/membership. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Monk podcast listeners. The following is a sample of the Monk members-only podcast. To access the full-length edition of this episode and all of our regular Monk members-only podcasts, go to our website, www.W. Moncdebates.com and register for membership. Membership is free, and it's available for you right now at www.munkdebates.com. Hope you enjoy the program. Hello, Monk members. Roger Griffiths here, your host and moderator. welcome to this, our regular monk members-only podcast, the weekly program where we delve into the big issues and ideas in the news, hopefully leaving you with some new insights and analysis. We do this each week with Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs, internationally renowned scholar and author, Janice, great to be in conversation with you.

I think we're finally, both of us recovered after last Thursday's live in-person. Monk debate with over 2,000 people at Roy Thompson Hall. Thank you again so much for moderating the middle portion of that debate. And just a reminder that if you are a monk member, you can go to our website and access a streaming version of that debate. When you upgrade, because we're all about upgrading here, to supporter levels. That's 99 bucks a year.

You get all kinds of great perks, including live and 30-day streaming privileges of all of our live events. It's so good to be back to the live world, Janice. It really was great to see so many members there and have the opportunity to talk to them after us and just that buzz in the hall, right? That sense of tension when you're in person. And there's a lively debate going on was direct. Yeah. Well, let's dive into our first topic today. I want to talk about food shortages. It's not something that we're really that aware of. you're in Canada, you walk into a supermarket. Seems full.

Maybe things are a little pricey. Inflation nipping at your grocery bill, but we are starting to see around the world now. And I think Sri Lanka is the most powerful example of this. Growing shortages that are beyond simply run-of-the-mill reductions in certain kinds of goods. I mean, you're talking in the case of Sri Lanka, a complete in a sense. sense collapse of the economy. And as we saw Janus with the Arab Spring, over 15 years ago, food has a dangerous correlation with political instability. How concerned are you about this? And when are we likely to really, for lack of a better expression,

experience the bite of food shortages globally? So I'm really worried about this. It's the top of my agenda, frankly. It was almost since the beginning. That is nuclear weapons. The two big things that are worrying me with respect to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Why are we in this? Because Russia and Ukraine export 28% of the wheat that we globally consume. It is huge. Add to that climate change. We don't talk enough about that. Just let's talk about that for a minute. India banned exports. White.

Searingly hot temperatures for weeks, 100 degrees and more. Band wheat exports because it doesn't have enough to feed its own population. So where does this bite first in the world? It bites in poor economies where your budget for food is a large proportion of your total. budget. People to realize we're talking 40, 50%, if you're total budget. Yeah, we have 40, 50% and 60%

increase in the price of wheat. Just imagine. And in country like Egypt, take one, which I know well, wheat provides 30% of the calories in an average diet. And if you're just on the edge, barely able to feed

your family, and then the price goes up 60%. Government has two choices, both that subsidize it and get yourself deeper into the death trap and that's what Egypt historically has done or let the price go up and you will have demonstrators on the street predictably through most of the Middle East in Africa. This is the toughest time I think, Bradger, for countries in Africa and the Middle East that we've seen really in probably 30 years. Here's an interesting aside to expand the geography that might be under pressure, under strain.

I had a friend who had a long conversation with someone very close to the potash corporation here in Canada. So Canada is one of two countries in the world that has a big deposit of potash. It's an essential ingredient in fertilizer. What this person was relayed to me was a story of the Brazilian ambassador here in Canada lobbying Potash Corp desperately for a significant increase in shipments to Brazil. And supposedly food insecurity in Brazil could be a real issue as 2020 unfolds predictions possibly by this fall of, you know, again, the scenes that we would expect, in a less developed economy in Africa or the Middle East,

but now affecting a brick economy, Brazil, facing harvests that don't have enough fertilizer to get the yield up to the level where they can take enough calories off those fields into refining and onto stores and people's kitchens and mouths. So, wow, that really woke me up that this isn't, again, just a typical and tragic famine story of Ethiopia or Somalia or other countries that were all too familiar with over the last quarter century. This is something that's moving its way up from less developed to more developed economies with potentially profound, again, political consequences and instability. So glad you put that one on the table, Roger, because yes, we talk about Russian Ukraine's exporters of grain and barley and corn, but they are very large exports to fertilizer. So just imagine when you're already having trouble growing enough wheat and you can't get access to fertilizer. If you can't get access to fertilizer in the spring, you don't grow much of a crop.

the summer and the fall. And that is going to, that is wide spread throughout the global economy right now. That's why the pressure on Canada, frankly. But you're right. They should really start to bite by the fall and the winter. And just look at the chain here. Because there's feed ring that is used. And the environmentalists have always been very unhappy about this, but it's used to be cattle and pigs. There's not going to be enough. So the price of meat is going to go up too. So we are seeing this, frankly, huge effect going right through the whole food chain.

I'm going to go out in a limb here, Roger. This is going to put tremendous pressure on the sanctioners. Because when people are. starving, which is what we're really going to see. Food insecurity is a polite way for saying people, kids are going to go to bed hungry at night. People will be starving in the most vulnerable countries. But the poor in a country like Brazil will be having a nightmare time as well. Pressure is going to grow to ease these sanctions. It's not sustainable, frankly, unless we radically change the way we farm, the way we feed animals and think again about sustainable

agriculture, because this is not sustainable. Great insight. And I think that's an interesting idea that as the pressures build, maybe the policy response in a sense has to change. And we have to start triangulating food security with sanctions, with the war in Ukraine, with how that conflict unfolds over the weeks and months to come. You've been listening to a sample of the monk members-only podcast. To access the rest of the episode, consider becoming a member. Membership is free and available at www.wunk debates.com. Once you've joined as a member, go to your membership profile to access the rest of this episode and all of our Monk members podcast. Thanks for listening.