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SECRETARY BLINKEN: Nice, thanks. Thanks very a lot, and actually, due to each one among you for becoming a member of us at present. It’s nice to see so many colleagues on the display screen. I particularly need to thank my buddy and colleague Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for being right here, serving to to guide our dialogue, and for every little thing that he and our colleagues are doing each single day to reply to what’s, alas, a rising disaster.
We see the affect that is having on lives fairly actually all over the world. However to you, Tom; Cary, to you for every little thing that you simply’re doing each single day – our particular envoy for meals safety – I would like each one among you to know that we’re centered on this each day. And never simply us; possibly most essential from my perspective, the President, who may be very, very engaged on the difficulty of what we are able to do to cope with meals insecurity each within the close to time period but additionally in the long run.
Let me simply say a couple of phrases to get us began, flip it over to Tom, after which we’re actually keen to listen to from you, to take heed to you. As you all know very, very properly, between 2016 and 2021 – final yr – the variety of individuals residing in acute meals insecurity jumped from about 100 million to 160 million individuals, partially due to the accelerating local weather disaster as properly, after all, because the pandemic, COVID-19, disrupting meals provide chains, inflicting costs to spike in lots of locations.
Then, as Cary alluded to, Russian President Putin launched his unprovoked conflict of aggression on Ukraine. That’s, after all, prompted horrible struggling in Ukraine itself, its individuals, the nation; however once more, as you already know very properly, it’s having a devastating affect on international meals safety as a result of Ukraine is likely one of the breadbaskets of the world. It’s a number one producer of wheat, of corn, sunflower oil, amongst different issues. And fairly actually each place I’m going, that is what I hear.
Proper now, a Russian naval blockade within the Black Sea is stopping Ukraine’s crops from being shipped to their regular locations. There are someplace round 20 million tons of wheat that’s trapped in silos close to Odessa and in ships actually crammed with grain which might be caught within the Odessa port due to this Russian blockade. Russian forces have captured a few of Ukraine’s best farmland. They planted explosives all through the fields. They’ve destroyed very important agricultural infrastructure. There are credible reviews, together with as we noticed in one among our main newspapers at present, that Russia is pilfering Ukraine’s grain exporters – exports, excuse me – to promote for its personal revenue. Now Russia is hoarding its meals exports as properly.
So that is all deliberate. We all know that. President Putin is stopping meals from being shipped and aggressively utilizing his propaganda machine to deflect or distort accountability as a result of he hopes it’ll get the world to provide in to him and finish the sanctions. In different phrases, fairly merely put, it’s blackmail.
The Kremlin wants to appreciate that it’s exporting hunger and struggling properly past Ukraine’s borders, with international locations in Africa which might be experiencing an outsized share of the ache. And that is what I’m listening to immediately from counterparts all through the continent. Because the chair of the African Union, President Sall of Senegal advised President Putin a couple of days in the past the international locations of Africa are victims of this battle though they’re far, far, distant from the conflict.
This was additionally pushed residence on the UN a couple of weeks in the past after I convened a gathering of greater than 30 overseas ministers to assist confront the disaster, in addition to the Safety Council. However we are able to’t anticipate President Putin to do the fitting factor. The remainder of the world should urgently and collectively reply to the emergency.
In order that brings us to at present. You symbolize a few of the world’s main meals and agriculture companies, high foundations, NGOs. A lot of your groups have been combating starvation and strengthening international meals safety for years, for many years. However we now have one other vital second on this battle, and easily put, we need to be sure that we’re coordinating and collaborating with you to the best and handiest extent doable. This doesn’t work if we’re not working it collectively.
Our administration’s produced our personal international motion plan that focuses on 5 vital traces of effort that I’ll simply very briefly contact on earlier than turning it over to Tom.
First, we’re offering support to satisfy pressing wants, together with greater than $5.5 billion in meals safety and different humanitarian help because the Russian aggression. Some goes on to international locations. Some, after all, goes to worldwide organizations just like the World Meals Program, just like the Worldwide Fund for Agricultural Growth, just like the Meals and Agriculture Group.
Second, we’re working with different international locations to mitigate the worldwide fertilizer shorage. For instance, President Biden introduced a $500 million funding to extend home fertilizer manufacturing, to decrease prices, improve provide.
Third: We’re boosting agricultural capability and resilience by means of the Feed the Future initiative. We’re partnering with international locations in Asia, Central America, East, Southern, and West Africa, to tackle the longer-term challenges of constructing productive and efficient agricultural sectors to assist international locations transfer from vulnerability finally to self-sufficiency.
Fourth, we’re cushioning the macroeconomic shocks of this disaster – for instance, by working with multilateral improvement banks to extend assist for monetary help packages worldwide, one thing that Treasury Secretary Yellen has been taking over with full drive.
And fifth, we’re protecting this problem excessive on our diplomatic agenda, and that’s going to proceed for so long as the rapid disaster endures, but additionally so long as the underlying challenges endure. We’re doing it in our bilateral engagements with companion international locations in worldwide boards of 1 form or one other and in our outreach to the non-public sector and NGO companions, together with of us on this display screen.
We want your experience. We want your assets, your human assets. We want your networks. We want your finest concepts to attempt to cope with the problem we have now earlier than us. And we actually need to know and be taught from you about your evaluation of the present scenario; after which, wanting forward, what long-term meals safety issues you see looming on the horizon, not due to this conflict but additionally due to different dynamics which might be in play.
We all know that governments can not remedy this disaster with out companions such as you. We’re grateful for all that you simply’re doing. We’re grateful for being within the battle with you, a few of you for a lot of, a few years now. So I’m wanting ahead to listening to from of us, however let me flip it again to Cary and/or flip it over to Tom.
SECRETARY VILSACK: Mr. Secretary, thanks very a lot. I respect the chance to be with all of you at present, and I feel it’s honest to say that everyone knows how difficult and the way subtle international meals techniques are. And as Secretary Blinken indicated, it actually underneath regular circumstances requires cooperation and coordination. However with COVID shutdowns, provide chain disruptions, and the conflict in Ukraine, we now have deep concern about how we’ll get the meals and fertilizer flowing effectively, guaranteeing that our producers and people all over the world have the mandatory instruments and proceed to maintain meals on the dinner tables of individuals the world over. It is a monumental problem.
We’re becoming a member of right here at present, Secretary Blinken and I and Cary, as a result of we actually need to know what you already know, and we additionally need you to know what the Biden administration is doing to addressing these issues by means of an all-of-government method.
Now, Secretary Blinken, who has been an incredible advocate for specializing in meals safety, alerted you to the truth that we have now made a $500 million or – and will likely be making a $500 million funding in modernizing fertilizer manufacturing and improvement, of extra environment friendly use of fertilizers by farmers right here within the U.S. We now have additionally made a $2 billion funding primarily based on the President’s path on our home meals provide system to make sure higher resiliency in that system and to make sure that American shoppers and producers are benefiting from honest costs and plentiful provides. We additionally drew down on the USDA the total $282 million from the Invoice Emerson Humanitarian Belief, which is hopefully going to ship U.S. commodities to international locations in Africa and the Center East which might be feeling immediately the results of Putin’s conflict in Ukraine and the following disruptions.
I’ve been participating as properly with my counterparts all over the world. Simply final month I traveled to Germany for the G7 agricultural ministerial, which I adopted up with a visit to Poland, the place we mentioned very related matters to what we’re delving into at present. We’re encouraging our allies and companions to return collectively to maintain commerce open, to not enact export bans, and to share finest practices for sustainably growing manufacturing to make sure that we’re capable of get meals to those that most want it.
The information of the way to make these techniques work most effectively and at residence are classes that may be disseminated all all over the world. A number of the organizations on this name helped to construct the worldwide buying and selling system that has fed a world inhabitants by grew by 5 billion individuals since World Battle II by encouraging meals to circulation from surplus areas to food-deficient areas. It was constructed on the concept by eradicating commerce limitations we may successfully and effectively combine our economies, generate innovation, develop and prosper collectively.
Throughout these instances of stress, many international locations contemplate changing into insular and to put much less emphasis on companions and neighbors and allies. That is precisely the response that Putin hoped we’d get and he would have, however he didn’t anticipate the solidarity that the worldwide group has proven largely due to the management of President Biden. He didn’t assume that the assist would come and that international locations would bind collectively to assist, and he in all probability hoped that the strain would pressure {our relationships} with each other. However actually, he was flawed. We proceed to show him flawed by protecting the traces of commerce open, by avoiding export restrictions, by sharing assets, and by working collectively by means of these tough instances.
Now, as Secretary Blinken properly is aware of as he’s been so closely and personally concerned, we’re conducting in depth diplomatic engagement to encourage all international locations to chorus from these trade-restrictive measures like export bans and extreme stockpiling, which may exacerbate provide chain challenges and value inflation.
I’ve been encouraging international locations to take this time to look at limitations to commerce, together with guidelines and requirements that could be outdated. Now isn’t the time to battle on to uphold these limitations. We’ve set to work collectively to take away them in order that we are able to guarantee a seamless buying and selling system, the form of cooperation by way of international agricultural markets that had been so essential to international meals safety.
As I take heed to you at present, I hope we hear from you a few of the logistical challenges that we might face in attempting to maneuver that Ukrainian grain if ports are open or if an overland entry route is established, by way of the power to entry the vans, the rail vehicles, and the loading tools crucial to maneuver that grain effectively. I hope we’re capable of meet the testing and inspection tools wants that had been conveyed to me by the Ukrainian agricultural minister. I hope we learn the way we are able to proceed to contribute to the World Meals Program so we are able to meet the challenges of eve-increasing international meals insecurity. And I hope that if and once we’re in a position to determine methods through which fertilizer might be made out there, that we accomplish that in a means that permits all of us to have the ability to produce the meals essential to feed ever-increasing world populations.
So I stay up for the dialog. I respect Tony’s inclusion of the Division of Agriculture on this essential dialog, and I stay up for studying from all of you at present.
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