In the video discussion, panelists explore varied aspects of transforming the global food system into a more sustainable model. The world's largest meat producer, represented by Thomasoni, addresses the challenges faced in meeting increasing demands for meat while ensuring sustainability. The discussion highlights potential solutions such as integrating grain and livestock production, providing technical assistance and financial support for small farmers, and policies being implemented in Brazil to reduce taxes for those adopting regenerative practices. This segment emphasizes how current technologies could make the transition to a sustainable food model possible, with a focus on enabling small farmers with innovative practices.

Further, panelists delve into broader sustainability issues, discussing why despite understanding the necessity of such transition for years, significant progress hasn't been made. Paul explains that though the energy transition is vital, approximately 30% of emissions and possible solutions lie within the food system. Challenges also arise from geopolitical tensions, economic disruptions, and environmental catastrophes. The conversation emphasizes the exponential nature of these challenges and the imperative of holistic and large-scale changes, instigating from a better collaboration between governments, businesses, and financial investment in emerging markets. Systemic transformation is essential given increasing climate and economic pressures.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. predicament [prɪˈdɪkəmənt] - (noun) - A difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing situation. - Synonyms: (dilemma, plight, bind)

So the prosperity predicament. Big lofty topic, lots of threads to pull on.

2. regenerative agriculture [rɪˈdʒɛnərətɪv ˈæɡrɪˌkʌlʧər] - (noun) - A sustainable farming approach that focuses on regenerating the health and biodiversity of soil and ecosystems. - Synonyms: (sustainable farming, ecological agriculture)

Brazil is doing that. The government of Brazil, if the farmers adopt regenerative agriculture, they can reduce the tax.

3. infinite growth [ˈɪnfɪnət ɡroʊθ] - (noun) - An economic or business concept where continual, indefinite expansion is expected or intended. - Synonyms: (endless expansion, unbounded growth)

You know, I always said you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet.

4. exponential solutions [ˌɛkspoʊˈnɛnʃəl səˈluːʃənz] - (noun) - Rapid, multiplying approaches or methods that significantly address large-scale problems. - Synonyms: (rapid solutions, multiplying methods)

Exponential problems require exponential solutions.

5. holistic [hoʊˈlɪstɪk] - (adjective) - Relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts of the system. - Synonyms: (comprehensive, all-encompassing, integrated)

...look holistically and more people are asking themselves, what do we need to do to reboot these economies...

6. amalgamation [əˌmælgəˈmeɪʃən] - (noun) - The action, process, or result of combining or uniting. - Synonyms: (merger, combination, union)

We saw the same with the Green deal. People don't like regulation, but it's better to have the right regulation than getting increasingly an amalgamation of things.

7. biodiversity [ˌbaɪoʊdaɪˈvɜːrsɪti] - (noun) - The variety of plant and animal life in a particular habitat or in the world as a whole. - Synonyms: (ecological variety, biological diversity)

...pay people decently in the value chain, ensure that we don't pollute the water, be sure that we protect and restore biodiversity instead of destroying it.

8. exponentially [ˌɛkspoʊˈnɛnʃəli] - (adverb) - Increasing at a rapid or accelerating rate. - Synonyms: (rapidly, quickly, increasingly)

We have an exponential problem, and exponential problems require exponential solutions.

9. political tensions [pəˈlɪtɪkəl ˈtɛnʃənz] - (noun) - Conflicts or disagreements with political roots or implications. - Synonyms: (political strife, governmental discord)

You have the geopolitical tensions, you have the political tensions in the countries itself.

10. geopolitical [ˌdʒiːəʊpəˈlɪtɪkəl] - (adjective) - Relating to world politics, especially in terms of international relations or global strategies. - Synonyms: (global political, international relations)

You have the geopolitical tensions, you have the political tensions in the countries itself.

The Prosperity Predicament

So the prosperity predicament. Big lofty topic, lots of threads to pull on. 30 minutes. We'll see a countdown clock here. Very menacing somewhere. Thomasoni, I wanted to start with you. World's largest meat producer. You come in very much on the supply demand side of this equation, right? With the rising standards of living, more people coming out of poverty, there's more demand for meat. There's only so much pastures, only so much meat, so many cows. How do you transition the current food system to a more sustainable model? The technology we already have, it is possible to transition.

We have examples that when you have applied enable agriculture in a way that you put together, you combine grain production with livestock. In florists, you can produce in the same area 15%, 15% more food. And to be carbon positive, it is already exist. We have some farmers that do that. The challenge that we have, and we have discussed this in the B20, that is we need to create access, access to the small farmers, to this technology, that this may be part, this innovation of technology. We have to the small farmers with technical assistance. This is the two things. Technology innovation with the small farmers, with technical assistance.

And to do that we need to find away to finance that. The farmers need some money, affordable money, maturity, time for money to adopt this new technology. And besides of that technology, money times to the money tax of the money, we need to have assurance from the farmers because they invest their life in the farms. And I believe that this is possible. Brazil is doing that. The government of Brazil, if the farmers adopt regenerative agriculture, they can reduce the tax. It is possible and we are doing that. The technology is available. It's just the amount of money we need in the technical system. Perfect.

And Paul, to you, of course, it's not just the food system that we need to make more sustainable. What do we need to do to finally get to this? It kind of seems like we've been talking about it for a couple of decades and everybody kind of knows largely what they need to do. Why are we not there yet? Well, so I'm glad we're talking the food system because obviously the energy transition is very important. And you heard Bill talk about it, although he's a little bit too focused on technology is the only part that will get us there.

I think it's a little bit more than that. But also to have the food system be part of this is now well accepted. 30% of the emissions are coming from our food system. It's also actually 30% of the solutions. So a 60% swing with actually the lowest investments and the fastest results. That's why people are getting more interested in it. How can you stop deforestation, the methane, the degrading of the land, the fertilizer, all these elements of heavy emissions. And it needs to be higher on the agenda. And it is, increasingly so. So we've lifted many people out of poverty over the last few decades with our economic system.

And we've been sleeping at the wheel a little bit because it was going well. We had great statistics. Most of the Millennial Development Goals were achieved two years ahead of target, halving the number of people in poverty. Then we got the Sustainable Development Goals enthusiastic, the agreement, then immediately, the Paris 2015 COP21. So there was this momentum. What we did not really foresee is, was the quick lifting of people out of poverty with this linear, fairly destructive extractive production model. Only 8% of the things we produce gets reused, most of it incinerated. Landfills, oceans, increasingly. It's just not sustainable.

This world was made for probably 4 or 5 billion people, but not 8 billion people. And it's catching up on us. You know, I always said you can't have infinite growth on a finite planet, and anything you can do forever is by definition unsustainable. So we've been surprised as human beings at the speed we're linear thinkers. We have an exponential problem, and exponential problems require exponential solutions. We got a little tip of that during COVID but we haven't really, you know, fully absorb that or internalize that. The beauty now is, to be honest, which is a sad situation, what I'm going to tell you, that so many things are coming together now that we are finally starting to understand that the system is really broken.

You have the geopolitical tensions, you have the political tensions in the countries itself. You have the revolution of AI, you have increasing climate disasters being thrown at us, disruptions in the value chain, and the list goes on. People are starting to discover now that the cost of not acting is actually becoming higher than the cost of acting. So this is where the beauty lies, that we are not putting a bandage on there like we did during the financial crisis or during COVID but that we now look holistically and more people are asking themselves, what do we need to do to reboot these economies and to change them fundamentally?

And all of a sudden, the economic forces are driving you there. Frankly, technology helps. Government regulation that you see increasingly coming to the foreground helps. Signals from the marketplace are increasingly becoming clear. So the businesses that understand that and are leading increasingly are getting rewarded. For that also by the financial market, because they're positioning themselves in a way now. What gets in the way? First of all, we're moving $1.8 trillion green energy up 50% versus a year ago, this year up again another 30.

We've talked solar, we've talked wind, we talked batteries, electric vehicles. Many of these things are close tipping points. But we've discovered because we waited so long that we need to invest four times more than we currently do. So how do we unlock that money challenge? First of all, business itself, are we ambitious enough? Because we're doing significantly more than my predecessor doesn't mean we do enough. So ambition is lacking in business because of all these crises.

Most of the CEOs are pulled back to the short term when we deal here with strategic, fundamental, longer term issues. So that's a challenge. The second one is governments, because the governments really and the multilateral institutions are in a difficult situation. We deal with symptoms, but not with underlying causes. We have per frost regulations in most countries. We still have $7 trillion of perfour subsidies on fossil fuel. We have in the, you know, in Brazil, we have $58 billion of fossil fuel subsidies in the last five years, seven times more than what we spent on green energy.

So you get what you're asking for. We see the same in the food system, by the way, perfect subsidies pushing us in the wrong direction. So government clarity of policy, government ambition is very important and business needs to help give the governments courage to do that. And then the flow of money needs to significantly increase, especially to the emerging markets. Unfortunately, of all the climate investments, only 7% goes to the emerging markets. So the discussions that we now have in Baku, which is called the Climate cup, or at the World bank meetings right now in Washington, next week in Cali, at the biodiversity cup, is how do you unlock that money? By all means possible, because I think governments are starting to discover as well, it's better to spend a little bit more money creating the right, more equitable, more sustainable economy that also works for future generations and save yourself increasingly the costs that are now being wasted, to be honest, and I'll take from there to Marcela.

From your perch in the government, do you agree with this view? What do you think? I mean, everything that my panelists said is right on in terms of our global challenges. I think when you think about the original question of sustainable development or inclusive growth, let me honor the title of the conundrum or the predicament of growth. And I think fundamentally we need growth to lift people out of poverty. But also growth is exclusive by nature. It basically happens where capabilities aggregate, where you have people, where you have infrastructure, where you have talent.

So it tends to happen in cities. It tends to happen where these capabilities can aggregate and people get left behind. Right. So you actually, to make growth inclusive, you have to be very purposeful to link people in the periphery into networks that make them more productive. And these networks can be physical, you know, water and roads, more and more they're virtual. Right. Access to finance. We had that conversation. The hardest ones to scale are social networks. Poor people hang out with poor people, they don't grow. Right. So I think you do need government, you do need regulation, because to incentivize that last mile investment, to really integrate people.

And then of course, you need an environment which I think has been created in Brazil with the Central bank, where innovation flourish, where some of those disruptive technologies can really disrupt all industries so that that inclusion can happen faster. And we were talking a little bit about the importance not just of regulation, but of appropriate, targeted, correct regulation. Right? Not just go out regulating everything, but be targeted about what you're doing. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, probably one of the clearest correlations is richer countries have more regulation, but precise regulation.

And that's the role of the private sector, to really inform the public sector on how to regulate in a way so that you can have a functional market. Paul, do you think we do that appropriately today? So where we are currently, it's very difficult for individual companies to attack the challenges at the speed and scale that is needed, perhaps only 20% can now be done by individual companies. Usually a little bit more greening in scope one and scope two, increasingly the legislation pushes you to scope three.

The European Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive is an example of that. So increasingly we need to look at these partnerships that need to be formed. And as the political environment is difficult and you do need at the end the right frameworks to operate, it is very important that you get the coalition of businesses that are responsible to help de risk these political processes. We saw that happen in Europe with the nature protection law, for example, where we have 150 companies, 160 companies that went to Brussels and said, you know, despite moving more to the right in your elections, we still want you to protect nature because otherwise the cost that we're getting in our businesses is significantly higher.

We saw the same with the Green deal. People don't like regulation, but it's better to have the right regulation than getting increasingly an amalgamation of things because we're not addressing these issues. So business needs to move from lobbying, which is very much a disease right now. $6 billion goes to Washington and it's all doing it for your own self interest, to what I call in my book net positive. I call it positive advocacy where we work together and say what do we need to do to clean up the mess in the fashion industry and pay people decently in the value chain, ensure that we don't pollute the water, be sure that we protect and restore biodiversity instead destroying it.

You know, we were 2% sustainable cotton 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. We're 2% today. The only difference is we use 10 times more cotton. So the 98% has become 10 times worse. That's why climate change goes up. That's why there's more plastics in the oceans. That's why we have more inequality. So business needs to say I'm responsible for that. But I'm not only responsible for that, it's in my interest to change it. And I'll help you put the right policies in place. And unfortunately, we don't have enough courageous leaders that are willing to do that.

They're staying. The average tenure of a CEO is now four and a half years. The moment they get the jobs they're thinking on how can I get into my retirement mode? So it's hard work. It's not easy these things. But I always tell people, what's the alternative? Give me a better alternative and I'll spend as much, if not more energy for that.

Tomazoni, I wanted to ask you about the behavior of the consumer at jbs. What do you, if you put a label, a green label, you know of this, this is raised sustainably. You know this cattle had reduced emissions and you have to pay a little bit more. Do you find that people do that today more than they did maybe 10 years ago? Our experience that consumer, they don't want to pay the bill for the transformation. If you bring the same product, one is less carbon footprint and you charge a little bit more. Consumer, not take it consumer, they don't want to pay the bill for this transformation.

In reality, the solution is to transform the system. We know that to be sustainable is more efficient than the way that you produce today. This is clear. If you are more sustainable, you are more efficient. The transformation will take some time and then this. The only way to solve this is through the coalitions, the government, the companies, the Social Security, the economy. We need to work together and all that. But the main issue to push action we need to have Money Today just 40% of the investment to tackle the climate change go to agriculture and food system.

And we know that food system has the potential to catch 23% of the old emissions of the global emissions means that if we invest there, you have the solutions to tackle the climate. But so far we don't have these attitudes and we don't have this visions from that. And we are not our company, we are gbs. We are focused on to be more sustainable because our core is biogenic. We need to invest. That is not because it's for the sustainable for the future of the company. I know that is the future of the planet is because it's better for the consumers and the farms. They want to adopt this technology because it's more productive from them.

We need to create a conditions from them to have, as I mentioned before, money, a technical assistance and protect the farm. We suggested in B20 that we need to be more innovative and funding of this money for making the transition one of these ways. I know carbon credit is very, very important. But besides avocado credit we need to establish a payment for environment service and then this will be help accelerate the transitions.

We, we are, I strong believe that food system meat production is part of the solution. We need to invest in agriculture in order to make this transition. And I'm so focused on this because 65% of the poor people who work is in agriculture. 65%. We have 2 to 1/3 of the population that suffer for food insecurity. If we transform this system, we can tackle the angry, we can tackle the food insecurity, we can tackle the client and we are able to develop a new economy. It's good for everyone. It's just. It's important to be conscious on that.

I mentioned that I was honored to be chairman and we bring this project from the agriculture minister of G20. They accept 70% of recommendation. Now look for the G20 the expectation that the leaders of the country will be accepted because then it start to move on the solution for me, for the climate and for the food security. I'm going to pivot to something based on something that you've mentioned here to Mazuni.

Food insecurity. Marcela, how much of a role does that play in another problem that we keep talking about, which is migration, right? How much does hunger, food insecurity play into the patterns that you're seeing in immigration today? Look, we have had migration throughout history. It's as old as history and usually people migrate because of differential in incomes. And because they're young, right? And our countries, we share that. The U.S. and Brazil are both countries that have been strengthened through migration throughout their history. Then we see spikes of migration based on shocks.

And that's what we're experiencing now. And basically the shock that we face is 8 million people who have left one country, Venezuela. There are other dynamics that are global, but that's one country that has, you know, 25% of its population left. And most of it, most of that displacement has actually been faced by the region. 80% of that displacement is in four countries in South America, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. So I think the Biden Harris administration realized that this is a regional challenge and it needed regional solutions.

And under this LA declaration that the President signed a couple years ago, with 22 countries in the region, that's what we've been trying to do, to kind of row in the same direction because migration is manageable. And the pillars that we're working on together as a region in one of the most difficult topics and politically difficult topics, because it's so easy to weaponize migration, focus on, yes, working together on humane enforcement, dramatically expanding lawful pathways for migrants, and then working on the stabilization of migrants here in the region and providing them integration and legal status. And Brazil has been an incredible leader in that work.

And together as a region, these countries, over half of the countries that have signed the LA Declaration at the Summit of the Americas with President Biden have regularization policies. 4.4 million migrants have been regularized inside of Latin America. So just to say, yes, we have shocks, we are facing the largest displacement of people in Latin America's history. But there is an incredible story in the making of how this hemisphere is working together to face this challenge. And now we have in two weeks a big event looming over us, which are the US elections. How do you see that affecting that work that you're doing going forward?

Look, I think of all the topics that I've worked on in development, this is the one where politics and policy tends to be the furthest apart because it is so easy to weaponize migration. And I think that if you actually, even though it is a topic that is high on voters minds in the US if you actually look into the polling, what Americans want is they want us to be able to secure our border. They want us to also they know that we benefit from migration in our labor markets. And I think this is the approach that the Biden Harris administration has tried to promote and has been successful at it. Right.

Migration has gone down in our southwest border by 50% in the last few months. Not just because of our enforcement actions, but also because all of this work that we are doing within the region and pairing this strategy that has worked through historic spikes, Right. Enforcement with giving lawful alternatives to migrants. And I think that the approach that the administration has taken will endure. Right. The LA Declaration is owned by the region. The countries are the ones that are pushing these policies and they're seeing that rowing in the same direction benefits them.

Yellow decorations presidency has now been taken by Colombia. We have created a secretariat that runs with it. We have invested and announced in the last year $1.2 billion to help the region stabilize migrants. So I think we can be a country, the U.S. a country of laws, a country of an orderly border and a country that still welcomes migrants. And I do think we have created the policies and the structures that will endure. And Tomazoni, what about as a global company, global supply chain, are you worried about potential tariffs if Trump wins the US Election? We, we are focused on the consumers in that we are, we are not see that one or another party, we nor one make change in our business.

We focus to be more competitive, to produce more with less. Because our mission is to feed the population in a grow population. We must to produce more food, a more sustainable way and more affordable way that for us, we focus on the things that we control, not the things that we are out of our control. And Paul, to close out with you thinking broadly about climate policy and sustainability globally, how do you see this U.S. election?

Well, it's a crucial one and I'm not an American citizen, but we are citizens of planet Earth and America happens to be one of the biggest emitters of carbon, the highest per capita, the second highest in absolute. And we've seen the positive effects of the inflation. We still have 1 minute and 30 seconds. Can you hear me? Sorry for the joke, but the only place that that happened to me was in Iran. That's another story. But seriously, being the second biggest emitter, we've seen the effects of the Inflation Reduction act not only in the US but actually galvanize people in different places in the world to get to this greenery economy.

What will happen is if you have a president that doesn't believe in climate change, that wants to actively support the fossil fuel industry, that actually believe in partnership. In fact, I went to the White House to try to convince him to stay in the Paris Agreement. And that was one of the most unpleasant meetings I had in my life. And doesn't believe in international cooperation to solve issues that we need to do together, then you can only say, houston, we have a problem. Now, we can look at that for four years and then go back again. But you send the wrong signal to business. It's already starting to happen where some of the CEOs was a little bit weaker back backbone or spine are starting to make different noises already again. And yeah, we like them because it's less regulation and a little bit less text for me.

But meanwhile, they're shooting themselves long term in the foot. So we'll lose four years. The world will have millions more people suffering as a result of that. But we'll become more determined to move forward because there is no other option, unfortunately. Now, what we've seen in the US More coal plants were retired under Trump because it made economic sense. So turning it back will not happen. But will it result in slowing down and less ambition from the private sector as a result of that? Definitely. And that's a shame. It's not a shame for some of these Americans that are pretty happy in where they are and have had possibilities to adapt and to protect themselves to a certain extent.

Hurricane Helena showed how many people start to suffer in the US as well. But it's the millions of other people in countries that had nothing to do with this, that don't have adoption, don't have access to financing, that will pay a dear price for this. Now, I don't want to be part of that, and I hope many of the American citizens don't want to either. So let's decide what side of history we want to be in two weeks time. All right. That's all the time we had, unfortunately. Thank you so much.

Global, Economics, Sustainability, Food Systems, Climate Change, Emerging Markets, Bloomberg Live