Chef José Andrés Launches New Institute to Tackle the Global

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, HOST: Well, the severity of global food insecurity is worsened ever. According to a new report from the World Food Programme that identifies 18 hotspots on the brink of catastrophic hunger. And this isn’t just a problem in countries facing war, famine and climate disasters. In the United States alone, nearly a third of college students struggle with food insecurity. Chef and humanitarian activists, Jose Andres, is on the frontline of the global food crisis. He joined Hari Sreenivasan to discuss his new plans to tackle it all.

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HARI SREENIVASAN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Chef Jose Andres, thanks so much for joining us. You have been addressing and tackling the problems of food insecurity for so long now, and you are now launching a new Global Food Institute partnered with George Washington University. Why? What is this going to do?

JOSE ANDRES, FOUNDER, GLOBAL FOOD INSTITUTE AT GW AND FOUNDER, WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN: Well, let me tell you why the idea of Global Food Institute right in Washington, D.C. at George Washington University, that happens is when the universities in America that addresses politics and food policy like no other university. So, close to Washington D.C. power, White House and the capital. Today, we see a world in the United States and countries everywhere where food seems — is always an afterthought. Where the different apartments of agriculture almost seems, sometimes, they’re running to see food as a commodity. Where often is not solving the issues that people face. Today, planet earth produces enough food to feed all of humanity, two, three times. But still, we have hundreds of millions of people that go to bed hungry. We need to start creating a smarter policy, smarter bills that becomes good politics in bipartisan ways. We need to start considering food that’s a national security issue, and we need to start thinking that the presidents of every country will have a national food security adviser. Why? Because time is precious. We have, right now, time had changed that this is affecting crops every country around the world. We have drought stat distant time. We have plagues that right now are attacking entire countries in the heart of Africa. We have wars. We have mass migrations happening. If we don’t start taking food more seriously, I’m afraid that we’re going to be very close to one of the biggest migrations in the easter of time. And then today, we feel food. It’s available to all of us. One day we may wake up, one day, and we’re actually, actually is not enough food to feed everybody. That’s why we need to create this Global Food Institute — to start putting more importance into the into the World Food. Every politician running for president, for governor, for — senator or congressman, in America, around the world, is going to have to have, what is their food policy. How are they going to be thinking of food in the way they do politics? That’s what we hope to achieve in at this institute.

SREENIVASAN: So, is the institute responsible for, kind of, primary research. Are you going to try make to, kind of, practical suggestions? Is there going to be the coven of, like, a training camp for food policy activities from the world to come and watch or participate in?

ANDRES: I would say — obviously, you need to start small and keep building bigger. But I would say, it’s all of the above (ph). Right now, in the United States we have more than 40 departments and offices running over 200 food programs. They don’t even speak one — with each other. Well, we’re going to be trying to do one very simple thing. I believe that we put food in the middle of the table, like I’ve been doing already for over 10 years with this class that we’ve done at George Washington where we’ve been testing the waters. And all of a sudden you realize that food is immigration. Food is climate change in this environment. Food, in many ways, is the department of defense. Remember that the school lunch program in the United States of America was launched in 1946 at the request of the Department of the Defense in the Pentagon. Why? Because it was — where a moment that the Pentagon couldn’t fulfill all the needs of the army because all the young men and women going in the military were unfit to serve because they were hungry, because they were coming from very poor areas. Right now, we see the completely opposite. Right now, we see that the military is having issues fulfilling their needs because of many other issues, like obesity, et cetera. If we started thinking food is very much everything, even the way we do humanitarian aid in the rich countries, cannot be that the way the rich countries do humanitarian aid. It’s standing there is a surplus of food to solve the food problems. Why? We start in Haiti after the earthquake. We send so much food for free, that we put all the farmers in Haiti out of business. Well, now 14 years later, we see farmers knocking on the door, trying to come to America. Everything is connected. The way we do humanitarian aid is what also makes poor countries poorer in the process we have people migrating because they don’t have a way to feed their families. We need to start having an entire government that — where the departments speak more to each other. The Department of Health to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Infrastructure with Homeland Security. We need to start having a more, kind of, interaction when we put food in the middle about every single department. All work together or we will have many problems. If we make them work together, we can be solving many of the issues we are facing right now.

SREENIVASAN: You know, most people, if they have seen you over the past few years, they think of you and food in the context of crises, and we’ll talk about that a little bit. But there are lots of other ways where it’s not just in the context of a war or an immediate famine or an earthquake that people are suffering food insecurity. Even here in the United States.

ANDRES: It’s really — we have a tendency to think that what’s happened in Haiti has nothing to do with what’s happening in Ohio. And at the end, if you start thinking, you start off with distribution. Every — we have enough food in the planet, but we have people hungry. You will agree with me that the — about distribution. We’ve seen what’s happening in the last week in Washington, that you see Republican and Democrats, they’ve been negotiating about increasing the debt. One of the names of the issues they’ve been talking all the time has been about snaps. Do we cut the SNAPs, what we call, in more practical terms, food stamps — which is a supplement that is given to American families that may have a difficult time putting food on the table. The way we are doing the stamps right now shouldn’t be about if we cut it or not. But the conversation by Republicans and Democrats should be about, how do we improve it? Very much the SNAPs is an old program that has proven very effective, but that has, in a way, not modernized itself. Why we don’t make sure that we increase the SNAPs but — to buy fresh fruits and vegetable from different farmers in rural areas that in the process of keeping those families fed. We help the local rural economies in the process of solving the problem of hunger in American families. We increased the output of further money that goes to invest at the rural areas. All of this time, we solve the problem, but in the process, we help rural economies that sometimes they fall behind do better. Why we cannot use the SNAPs in local restaurants or diners? Why do people that received the SNAPs benefits that usually they leave in some of the poor communities in the cities in America? Cannot be spending that money in the same community they live? They usually have to go so — other community because in the communities they live, sometimes they are so poor that there is no restaurant, there is no supermarkets. Let’s make sure that in the process of helping the American families, we don’t throw in the problem but in the process, we encourage economic growth by opening diners. Opening food trucks. Creating jobs endorsed for communities. Opening markets that sell actually fresh fruits and vegetables. You see, if we have a smarter policy, smarter bills, all of a sudden, we have start solving problems one at a time.

SREENIVASAN: Speaking of hunger here at home based on a survey back in 2020 by Temple University, about 30 percent of students at a four-year colleges and 40 percent of students at two-year colleges are facing food insecurity today. So, I’m wondering whether that’s something that you’re going to be studying at the Food Institute in George Washington?

ANDRES: I’m a big believer in working both sides. You have to make sure that the big thinking happens in the places of power and you achieve this through good policy and good bills. But then you may need to make sure that all these filters down all the way to every single situation and every single community. So, yes, places like George Washington, some of the richest universities in America, where the tuition can be very expensive. We hear all over every time that these many students, as you mentioned, that they’re having a hard time of putting food on the table. Obviously, George Washington, as I’m — let’s say I’m a new faculty member now and I will be even more involved in the universities. We will make sure that, if anything, George Washington becomes one of these universities that is part of the solution and not part of the problem. But listen, it’s like in Washington, D.C., this in Central Kitchen. I was 26 or 27 years old when President Clinton came to visit. I saw, in first person, a hunger focus where senators of both parties left the Hill and came to that soup kitchen. Where an entire homeless shelter was right above to do this kind of smart conversation about how to solve hunger issues. So, I’m a big believer that, yes, policymakers, they need to be thinking big, but they need to be doing so at the street level where the problems are. Hunger and poverty is not an issue of Republicans or Democrats. It’s an issue of Americans. It’s a problem — not a problem for us to solve, but an opportunity for us to seize. Again, that’s the reason of the Global Food Institute. That’s — well, what we have big dreams, but obviously, you need to start one plate of food at a time. One smart policy at a time. But I hope, slowly but surely, we will be able to bring everybody to this longer table where the right ideas that are happening right now in every point in America, in many places America, many places around the world, that we give voice to those ideas. And one idea at a time will become a smart policy that hopefully will help America and the world be better in relationship to the way we produce and we feed the world.

SREENIVASAN: The U.N. World Food Programme said recently, they put out a report, 18 hotspots across 22 different countries. And it said, basically, millions of people are currently in or on the brink of, “Catastrophic conditions in which starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. So, what are some of the consequences of that? And how do you intercede? How do you, in the kind of, immediate regions of crisis, get food into places that other aid agencies have a tough time getting into?

ANDRES: Well, obviously, in my case, for Central Kitchen, we’ve been more based around the idea in natural disasters. Showing up in the very short-term, early days, hours, days, and weeks to make sure that we cover the short-term need in a disaster of food into the communities. Obviously, is — many agencies around the world, obviously, the biggest one being World Food Programme, who — they’ve been doing an amazing job over the years. Always with room to improve, but an amazing job over the years. But here, you are in this kind of moment of where we’re having many issues that they seem — they are very localized but they’re having a huge impact, regionally or worldwide. What’s happening in Ukraine, in a way, is a country defending themselves from these massive attack by Russians, an unfair attack. Killing civilians, mainly every single day with bombs. But in the process, we are realizing that that war is not only for their people and their freedom. Ukraine, with the grain its produced in those fertile lands of that country, feeds roughly between 450 and 500 million people every year. That’s why you see this grain deal to try to make sure that the Russians allow the grain exports to continue. Without that grain, we are going to be seeing bigger hunger issues in many countries in the world, in Africa. And this is going to be a conversation. But the bigger conversation is, why African countries still depend from that Ukrainian grain to feed themselves? Why, after so many years of talking that we need to make sure that Africa is a continent that can feed itself? Why is the world talking about shipping grain to feed those Africans? The short-term, to solve the hunger issues, yes. Will be the war to end, hopefully the grain to keep flowing from Ukraine to Africa. But the bigger picture is, why, once and for all, the African nations, with the help of richer countries around the world, has not helped to have a stronger farming production that itself, Africa can be feeding itself. These are, kind of, the long-term solutions that they’re not going to be resolved in one day and they’re not going to be resolved by one bill or by U.N. program overnight. We need to start investing right now.

SREENIVASAN: Chef, for people who might not be familiar, how do you get aid into a place after a natural disaster so quickly? How are you able to scale up, whether it’s Haiti or Turkey? I mean, how does the world at Central Kitchen do it? What’s your model?

ANDRES: So, again, I want to say, we are not the only food relief organization. There are many great people doing God’s work in many parts of the world. But very often, especially since we were founded — I founded it over 13,14 years ago. And especially I would say, right after Maria, that this one we had the very big growth. I said before, big problems have very simple solutions. And everybody always asks me, Jose, where do you guys get the food? I’m like, in the food warehouses and in the supermarkets? They are there. They may not answer the phone, but the food is there. What we do is fairly practical. When you have to stop a fire, who do you send? You send firefighters. When you have to take care of the wounded, who you send? Nurses and doctors. When you need to be feeding people, who do you sent? Well, you send cooks and people that think — like cooks. Even in Central Kitchen, this organization that this — a big team of people that they are beyond cooks. But really, to feed, you have to cook. What do you do? You find restaurants, restaurants that survived the hurricane, or restaurant that survived the earthquake, and they are strategically located. I don’t need to build a field kitchen if I don’t have to if I have restaurants that are available. So, let’s use their assets that they have in place. If we activate food trucks because they’re available, they happen in Florida in Fort Myers. We may be activating 10, 20, 30, 50 if we don’t have a kitchen like what happened in Bahamas in Abaco, because the entire island was underwater. There, we bring it initially by helicopter or by boat to every island. We did more than 80,000 meals a day in the early weeks until we built a field kitchen in Abaco while the situation improves. You see, we adapt. And usually so with local people that want to help. Usually so with local assets and restaurants and food trucks that we can activate immediately. And usually, it’s always warehouses full of food. And if not, we bring it with us in a case of hurricane, we can predispose food trucks all across with food and refrigerators, generators, everything running. Again, the only thing we do is that we show up and do it. We don’t — we always say, we don’t like to meet too much, but we like this to start cooking. Going in the field, and then start looking for one community at a time. In the process, you keep increasing the output every day. Very much that’s how at Central Kitchen have been doing it from day one.

SREENIVASAN: Chef Jose Andres, founder of the Global Food Institute at George Washington, as well as the founder of the World Central Kitchen, thanks so much for joining us.

ANDRES: Thank you for having me.

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