FOOD & GLOBAL SECURITY NETWORK
We're moving into uncharted territory in terms of both climate and biodiversity breakdown.
We must invest in understanding the potential for conflict, in order to plan and build for peace.
Global warming, biodiversity loss, food & water – they're connected, above all else, by soil health.
The Food & Global Security Network is a project of Farmwel, supported by FAI Farms - foodandsecurity.net
NEW REPORT - SOIL HEALTH: A SECURITY THREAT PROFILE
OUR PURPOSE
There is an urgent need to consider key impacts on society, with fair, continuing access to nutrition being one of the most critical. The availability or scarcity of staple ingredients can mean the difference between a civilised society and civil conflict. Interruptions in food supply may lead to nutritional insecurity, emphasising inequality, and acting alongside other social undercurrents to build resentment and increase the threat of civil unrest. At the more extreme end, this could lead to individuals or communities defending food supplies from other citizens.
Understanding and communicating risk is challenging. Research is often centred on a particular issue, for example, global warming, or biodiversity loss, or health – but real life is more complex. Threats exist in combination, wild cards emerge (e.g. coronavirus), and humans behave and react individually and en masse as positive, negative and often unpredictable forces. The World Climate & Security Report 2020 places water and food availability as the top climate-related accelerant of instability.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
The Food & Global Security Network, established in 2020, helps to identify threats, propose mitigation, and promote opportunities to ensure and improve global access to healthy, nutritious meals. Working with global experts we will develop and game realistic worst-case scenarios, investigate key themes in detail, report findings, and advocate high level policy responses.
Our objective is to deliver world class research and recommendations that will inform national and international food and security planning, and help to build stronger, safer,
and more resilient societies.
WE WILL DELIVER:
World class thought leadership and research
Practical threat mitigation pathways and frameworks
Commissioned food and security plans for businesses and governments
OUR ADVISERS
FFINLO COSTAIN
ffinlo is the chief executive of Farmwel, and founder of the Food & Global Security Network. Alongside FAI Farms, Farmwel has advised UK Government on agricultural sustainability and on the role of ruminant methane. In addition to delivering the F&GSN, Farmwel is working with global brands to develop practical pathways for agroecological transition. ffinlo also produces the Farm Gate podcast.
REAR ADMIRAL NEIL MORISETTI
Neil worked for the UK government as an officer in the Royal Navy, where appointments included Commander UK Maritime Forces and Commandant of the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Between 2009 -2013 he acted as the UK Government Climate and Energy Security Envoy, and then the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change.
ASHLEIGH BRIGHT
Ashleigh has a PhD in Zoology from the University of Oxford. Her professional interest is the complex challenges facing global food production, applying robust science in a practical and commercial context, to ensure farmers and their supply chain partners can grow food sustainably. Ash is now works as an independent consultant from her native country, New Zealand.
REGINALDO HASLETT-MARROQUIN
Regi began working on economic development projects with indigenous Guatemalan communities in 1988. He consulted for UNDP and advised the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. He is now the president of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, and farms in Northfield Minnesota. His book, 'In the Shadow of Green Man' is subtitled, 'My Journey from Poverty and Hunger to Food Security and Hope'.
JOONA MIKKOLA
Joona is a nature-based solution expert and founder at SoilWatch, a climate tech start-up that helps to build and finance large scale landscape restoration and regenerative agriculture projects in the Global South. Joona has consulted with several UN agencies, such as the WFP, the ILO and the CGIARs, living on the frontier of the climate crisis in Sahel.
CLARE HILL
Clare is Director of Regenerative Agriculture at FAI Farms, leading the regenerative transition across the 1200-acre site and managing regenerative programmes and projects with FAI’s food business clients. The farm is located on the Oxford flood plain, so improving soil health outcomes and building land resilience and productivity is central to Clare's work.
ROLAND BONNEY
Roland is a co-founder of FAI Farms and Benchmark Holdings plc, both established to develop sustainable progress in the food chain, focussing on agriculture, aquaculture & animal health. Roland is an experienced agriculturalist with wide global experience working on business development in the UK, USA and in the emerging Latin American and Chinese markets.