Máximo Torero Cullen | Devising an end to hunger (S13-E10)

 

 

 

[00:00:00] Melissa Fleming

My guest this week is one of the UN's most important analysts on global hunger and food security. 

 

[00:00:07] Máximo Torero

I have been through many problems in life, which I have learned a lot as an economist. I was in the hyperinflation in Peru. I was in wars in Peru, terrorism that was there. I have been in massive earthquake situations. So, I have seen a lot, but I never expected how complex this sector would become. 

 

[00:00:36] Melissa Fleming

Máximo Torero Cullen is Chief Economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO. From the United Nations, I'm Melissa Fleming. This is Awake at Night. Welcome.

 

[00:00:58] Máximo Torero

Thank you very much, Melissa. It's a pleasure to be here with you. 

 

[00:01:01] Melissa Fleming

You are an award-winning economist, and I guess you could have chosen almost any field to work in. What made you choose to work on food security and hunger? 

 

[00:01:12] Máximo Torero

So I'm an economist, and why I'm an economist is a very special story. Essentially, I applied to the universities in Peru, and the university I applied had three careers. And I selected the career of my father, which was accountant. But my brother decided to change it, so he put me in economics. That's how I ended in economics 

 

[00:01:33] Melissa Fleming

Your brother changed... 

 

[00:01:35] Máximo Torero

Yeah. My choice. 

 

[00:01:35] Melissa Fleming

Your choice. 

 

[00:01:36] Máximo Torero

Yes. He was smart guy. I am grateful to him. 

 

[00:01:38] Melissa Fleming

He was an older brother. 

 

 

[00:01:41] Máximo Torero

Yeah. So basically, I ended [up] studying economics, but I did the three careers. So, I did economics, administration, and accounting. Since I started university, I had to work, so I did research. And I did research in rural poverty, but mostly focusing on technology. So, I was working a lot on science and technology, and then I worked in a think tank in Peru for a long time. And then I moved to IFPRI, the International Food Policy Research Institute. That's where I started working really on food security and nutrition. And not on rural poverty because in Peru I was working in rural poverty, but that was after my PhD. 

 

[00:02:14] Melissa Fleming

So have you thanked your brother enough? 

 

[00:02:18] Máximo Torero

Always. Every day. 

 

[00:02:20] Melissa Fleming

Where in Peru did you grow up? 

 

[00:02:22] Máximo Torero

In Lima. 

 

[00:02:23] Melissa Fleming

Okay. In the city. So, you were a city boy. 

 

[00:02:25] Máximo Torero

I was a city boy. I was a lucky city boy who had parents that decided to invest all their money in my human capital. So, I was lucky in that sense. But later on, when I started working, I had to work across the whole country. So, I know Peru super well from the coast to the Andes to the jungle. 

 

[00:02:45] Melissa Fleming

What is Peru like for you? 

 

[00:02:47] Máximo Torero

Peru is a beautiful country. Amazing food. But also, it's a country that has a lot of diversity and heterogeneity among the country. You have a capital, where most of the population is concentrated. Which is even in the capital, you see the huge inequalities. Even deeper than what you see in the Andes or in the jungle, because people migrate and they don't have anything basically. But when you go to the mountains, you also see that there are households which are living at the top of a hill at 4,000 metres or higher. They don't have access to anything, but they live there. 

 

[00:03:24] Melissa Fleming

Are they happy? 

 

[00:03:26] Máximo Torero

I think something that I have learned with rural people is that they value a lot of their time and they value a lot their peace. So, I don't know if they are happy. I don't know if their kids are happy. Maybe the parents are okay and they are very happy. The kids of course face bigger challenges because they want to grow and they are normally restricted by their own norms of these indigenous people and by the isolation where they live. So, I won't say they are unhappy. I say that within their environment, they are okay. 

But again, it opens the window to bring opportunities how we can give those kids, those younger generations, people in those households, very isolated households, the opportunity to migrate or to do other things outside. And that starts with education. And that's what my country lacked a lot. You have kids that had to walk three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon to go to school. So, imagine. You wake up at 5 a.m. or 4 a.m. You walk. You arrive at 7 a.m. And then you walk back after classes at 3 p.m. You arrive at your house at 6 p.m. So, you only have one meal a day if you are lucky. So... But those kids do it. They walk and they go. 

And that's what chokes you. You see kids that are in this... Like, for example, I worked in Cajamarca in a place called Pomacanchi. What I saw there was these kids that basically walked all the time. But when we give them something that was atypical to them. We connected them to internet suddenly. We built a lab in their schools. It was amazing how fast they learn, especially the girls. Llacanora, sorry. It was not Pomacanchi. Pomacanchi is in Cusco. It's Llacanora. So, the girls were learning so fast. Because we did some tests on them using Wii games to understand their cognitive ability as a baseline to do an intervention. And then you see how much opportunities you can have there, and how much you can change the life of these kids with very little. 

 

[00:05:32] Melissa Fleming

Apparently, in that experiment, from what I understand, you were looking into their cognitive abilities because you were also looking into the nutrition they weren't receiving.

 

[00:05:45] Máximo Torero

These kids were anemic. So, we tested for anemia. And there is a linkage between anemia and malnutrition with cognitive ability. So, we wanted to see what was at the baseline level, the level of cognitive ability. But we did it with games, which was very easy to do and they loved it. They never had used this type of equipment and they learned very quickly. 

And then with the intervention that we did, it's a programme called Happy Faces. The intervention we did was basically to provide information to the kids through internet so that they can make choices. So, the first choice that we asked them to make is to take an anemia pill, iron pill. But the video... What the video will tell them is, 'Look, this is the specific location where you have to go to get the anemia pills.' Of course, we got all the authorizations from the parents and all the IRB protocols. 

Now, the question of the research that we were doing was, okay, is the messenger...? What should be the messenger? So, the message was the same. You need to take an iron pill for 60 days to move out of anemia, consecutively. But then we have to test the best messenger because we wanted to see how we can transmit information to kids. So, we worked with three types of messages. The same message but with three transmitters of that message. One was a soccer player. The second was... 

 

[00:07:00] Melissa Fleming

A famous soccer player? 

 

 

[00:07:01] Máximo Torero

A famous soccer player in Peru. This was done in Peru. And the second one was a doctor of the place. And the third one was an official of the local government. Now, why we chose a soccer player and not a volleyball player? Because Peru is a very good... In those days Peru was very good at volleyball. It was because the kids, the girls and the boys prefer soccer players. So, we found a soccer play called Solano, who was very popular in Peru. He did it for free. But the message was identical, no? And then we randomized the message to the kids.

So, the beauty of the project was that I was able to set up a lab for the kids of internet. We connected to the internet from the municipality. Because in Peru, at that point in time, all the municipalities had to have a connection. We just did it with antennas. So, the kids had a lab. We put a teacher. And then every day that the kids go to the lab, they will have to put a password and then a video will pop up. This is a secondary school. 

So, what we found is that the message of the soccer player was a huge success. There were lines of people taking the iron pills. Not only them. They were bringing their family, their brothers. But we couldn't allow that because they had to be cleared by their parents. And then we followed up and measured again cognitive ability, and we found that the kids were performing a lot better because of this. They were no longer sleeping in the classes and so on. So that was the first part. 

The second part, which is linked to what I do now, was okay, now that I know my message works and I can transmit the message, how I can use messages that will be helpful for their parents to do changes in what they produce and how they produce? Because in these areas, extension services are very restricted and normally parents don't understand what the extension is doing. And how they are teaching them to avoid a pest or a disease, like the fall armyworm, for example, or the flu for the chickens that they have. So, we provided scientific-based videos, very simple videos where we had a very low cost or zero cost way of doing it, like for [the] fall armyworm [there] was a trap. 

 

[00:09:01] Melissa Fleming

What is the worm? 

 

[00:09:02] Máximo Torero

Fall armyworm. 

 

[00:09:04] Melissa Fleming

I'm sorry, I've never...  

 

[00:09:04] Máximo Torero

It's one of the most problematic worms in maize production in the world, in corn, yeah. It's everywhere. It's a big problem. So, one solution is to put a melaza trap, which is zero cost. And then we check with the parents if the kids were transmitting the messages. We found they did. And we found that they implemented some of the practices. So, this is what we call upward intergenerational mobility. 

 

[00:09:26] Melissa Fleming

You got the kids to go back to the parents. 

 

[00:09:30] Máximo Torero

Oh, yes. Of course, the people looking at the work will say, 'Okay, but it depends on the context. There are countries and realities that parents will never hear the kids.' We tried in Uganda and it also worked. So, you know...

 

[00:09:43] Melissa Fleming

So you're providing an educational service on one hand with the connectivity. They're learning how to use the computer. They are learning about agriculture. And they have another job to go back and teach it to their parents. 

 

[00:09:56] Máximo Torero

Exactly. And for me, if the experiment didn't work, they at least had the computers and they had the internet. 

 

[00:10:01] Melissa Fleming

And if it worked, their parents had better crops and maybe the kids wouldn't be anemic. 

 

[00:10:07] Máximo Torero

Yeah. Maybe, but you see it was a win-win experiment for me. There was no... It was beautiful. I loved it. It's one of the biggest, nicest programmes that I implemented. 

 

 

[00:10:17] Melissa Fleming

Was there a moment when you wanted to dedicate yourself to international service rather than going into the corporate world? 

 

[00:10:25] Máximo Torero

No, I never wanted to go the private sector, no. You know, I had my same cohort. I have friends that studied like me and some of them decided to go to investment banks. Now they are retired and they are living very happily. I'm still working, but that's okay. But I never had that interest. I really like to work in the type of work that I do right now. 

Why I decided to move back to Washington, there was a simple reason. When you are a PhD and you are very well trained and you go back to a country that still doesn't have the critical mass, you make a lot of money. It's very easy to earn money because you have the network, you have the contacts and you are one of the few. You are like an independent entrepreneur basically. So, I didn't like that and therefore I decided that it was time for me to go back and to try to go again to... Because I never lost the contact with the international world. I was teaching at UCLA. I was teaching in Germany. So, I spent six to nine months in Peru but was moving around a lot. But again, it was not enough to assure that I was able to produce things that I was confident that I was going to do policies that really were correct or as close as I can. 

So, I went back to this think tank, international think tank, which is International Food Policy Research Institute, which is based in Washington. So, it was a very strong, solid think tank with very extremely good quality people that were the first ones evaluating progress in Mexico, for example. Super good economists, which I respected a lot. So that helped me a lot to get back on track of my academic record. And that's where I started to publish a lot. And that helped a lot to keep improving my tools, and keeping the frontier of the tools, which is something that you need to keep. 

Because at the end of the line people don't understand but what we do, I can really change life of people because I can really influence a policy. And if I am wrong, I'm going to mess the life of many people. So, you have to be very careful. And that's why I always say people... Some people say, '[inaudible] you can publish an article in a super journal, but then when you implement, you do something simpler. You don't need to go to...' I say, no. You have to do it as sophisticated as possible with the best techniques. And then you implement and that's okay. But you need to implement what you show worked, not a simple version that doesn't follow those standards. 

And there I spent 14 years in IFPRI. I ended as... After a year, I became director of a division. I built a team from scratch, basically. I built up superb team, which still I am working with many of them. And then at some point I decided that it was time to learn a little bit more about the financing world. And that's when I moved to the World Bank. So, I was a board member. I was Executive Director of the World Bank for two years. And I knew the beginning and the end because these are slots of years that they give you. So, I had an entry and an exit, which was good, was what I wanted. And the idea was to come back to IFPRI. I had my job secure if I wanted to come back. 

But then suddenly this option of FAO opened. I applied for it. I went through a very tough process. And then I went to Rome. And I was supposed to be in Rome for one year because there was a change of Director-General and I am now eight years, three months and 20 something days. 

 

[00:13:58] Melissa Fleming

You even count the days. 

 

[00:13:59] Máximo Torero

It has been a great experience because there is a big difference to what you do in research, which is like experiments and test things. The bank taught me a lot about private sector investment and how to manage financing. And I knew the bank because I worked for the bank a lot. But it's different to be there and be the one assessing and approving all the loans of the countries and understanding how IFC [International Finance Corporation] works, for example, the private arm. But at FAO, you have a huge capacity of implementing things with ministries. Really at FAO, we can really implement things at scale. So, there I have been working in designing big programmes. We have one which I love, which is Hand-in-Hand. 

 

[00:14:43] Melissa Fleming

Hand-in-Hand? 

 

 

[00:14:45] Máximo Torero

What it does is basically works with countries, our members. We have 84 members right now in the programme. And the members have to ask to become part of this programme. And this programme, what it does is uses data, geospatial data in the country, to identify territories within the country where there is enormous agricultural potential. And agriculture in FAO means livestock, crops, forestry, fishery agriculture. So, it's like you have a country and you build up the mountains. You see mountains. And the mountains means how much money you can make. And what we are looking is for areas that I can move somebody from $1 PPP [purchasing power parity] per capita per day to $7, because that is where we'll move them sustainably out of poverty and hunger. But they are not there. They are in $1. They are in one point something. 

So, then the next question is why we identify those areas where there is a lot of poverty, but there is this agricultural potential. The question is, okay, how do you resolve the constraints that they have so they can achieve that potential that they have. So, these are called green areas. So green areas in our territorial approach are areas with a lot of potential, $7 per capita per day, a lot of inefficiencies. We go there. We take our experts. We identify those bottlenecks, and then we build investment plans. 

And then FAO behaves like a bridge builder. So, we bring banks. We bring traditional donors. And we bring the private sector. And the argument is that in this process we de-risk them technically, because we provide detailed information and certified investment plans. The banks de-risk financially. And our job is to convince the private sector to invest in these projects. So, we calculate all the returns. We calculate how much emissions, if it is sustainable in terms of biodiversity of water. And they are super nice investment projects. If you want, I can tell you some of them, but... 

 

[00:16:37] Melissa Fleming

I would love an example of... 

 

[00:16:39] Máximo Torero

I can give you a very nice example in Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is next to Haiti, and they had a lot of migration from Haiti, but the Haitians are very good farmers. And in the border between Dominican Republic and Haiti, the government decided, the private sector decided to do a huge investment of a resort because there are beautiful beaches, amazing beaches, like virgin beaches that nobody was touching them. And now they are building a huge resort, similar to Punta Cana. But they wanted to create a new hotspot of tourism in the Dominican Republic. 

Now, what that means is that you will have a lot of demand for food, especially high-value commodities - fruits, vegetables, and so on. So, you have a demand there, secure. You have these amazing farmers migrating. So, the government decided to develop a piece of land in one of these green zones and the job of the project was to train these farmers, create the facilities for the standards and these farmers will sell to these hotels. So, it was a secure business. You control migration. You use their skill sets. You develop them more. You create infrastructure. There was an irrigation project there so there was water. There was good land. So that's the project. So, it's a beautiful project that resolved a problem of hunger, poverty. Resolved migration. And also made the resort happier because they will have very close by good quality food. 

 

[00:18:09] Melissa Fleming

Did you visit it yourself? 

 

[00:18:11] Máximo Torero

Yeah. I went there of course before it deployed. We designed the whole thing with the government. 

 

[00:18:14] Melissa Fleming

So do you ever go and get to see the fruits of your design? 

 

[00:18:18] Máximo Torero

No, yet. We're planning to go, I think, in September. No, in the last week of October we will go back there because to get there you have to go in a helicopter. It's not easy. 

 

[00:18:31] Melissa Fleming

So the resort doesn't yet exist. 

 

[00:18:33] Máximo Torero

No, the resort exists already. Yeah. No of course, it's already been deployed. 

 

[00:18:36] Melissa Fleming

And the guests are eating the fruits and vegetables from those farms. 

 

[00:18:41] Máximo Torero

I hope so. 

 

[00:18:41] Melissa Fleming

Okay, you need to go and check it out yourself and taste them. 

 

[00:18:44] Máximo Torero

But that's one. Another one is potatoes, for example. In my country, Andean potatoes, which are grown at 4,700 metres are very nutritious. But farmers plant all at the same time. So, all of them harvest at the same time. Every year, they complain that prices are too low, because there are a lot of potatoes, low prices. And they ask the government to buy them. This has happened historically. 

So, under Hand-in-Hand, we have these green zones where there were the potato producers. We needed to increase value added. So, we worked with companies and there was a plant that was developed to process the potatoes into frozen potatoes and potato chips. And these were done with oil from Ukraine, vegetable oil from Ukraine. They were able to start exporting. These potatoes are amazing. So, if you look at them, they're amazing, especially the frozen ones. And the demand is growing. It's really a very nice project also. 

 

[00:19:44] Melissa Fleming

Can you get an Andes potato in New York? 

 

[00:19:46] Máximo Torero

Yes. 

 

[00:19:49] Melissa Fleming

Are you worried about, I mean, there's a lot of talk about the quality of soil and the degrading of nutrition in the products that are grown because of different farming practices. Is this an issue? 

 

 

[00:20:03] Máximo Torero

Oh, of course. So, one of the mottos that we have in FAO is: “Good food for all, for today and tomorrow”. So “good food” means healthy diet for all. And the "today" is produce more today. But if you want to have the same amount of healthy diets tomorrow, you need to be careful about the quality of your soil. You need to be careful of how you manage water. You need to be careful with your biodiversity. And you need to be careful about reducing emissions. So that's the sustainability part. 

Why is this so important? Biodiversity is important because if something happens to the maize that I am growing, I need to find a variety which is resistant to that problem or to that disease. And the only way I will find it is if I have biodiversity in seeds. And that's the seed banks. So, I go and look in my seed bank, okay, which is the variety that is resistant to this type of pest or disease? And then I replicate it. I solve the problem. Okay. So, biodiversity is central. 

Water, as you know, water will be one of the major problems in the future. We are living in a world of water stress, so we need to be as efficient as possible in the use of water and increase the productivity of the water. So, every drop of water has a value that we need take into account. 

And emissions, of course, is because you don't want the climate problems that we're facing. But the food sector, the agri-food sector, the beauty that people don't understand. So, if you go to a COP, they criticize because we create methane emissions. We misuse soils. We use 70% of the water. But we give the food to people. So, farmers are producing food, the right to food. We need to keep giving the right to food. You don't want a beautiful planet without people. 

 

[00:21:40] Melissa Fleming

No, I mean, it's not just people needing to eat, the right to food, as you say, and also the right to healthy food, but it's getting food at all. It's more than 600 million people who are hungry. Does that keep you awake at night or what keeps you awake at night? 

 

[00:21:57] Máximo Torero

No, look, I have been through many problems in life, which I have learned a lot as an economist. I was in the hyperinflation in Peru. I was in wars in Peru and terrorism that was there. I have been in massive earthquake situations. So, I have seen a lot, but I never expected how complex this sector would become. So, after a year, happens COVID-19, no? And when you look at COVID-19 at the beginning, I don't know if you recall, but everything was health, no? How we can keep people alive and so on. They forgot about food. So, you can move health things around the world, but you couldn't move food because the ports were not ready to assure the safety of those vessels moving food. 

 

[00:22:45] Melissa Fleming

So they were sending masks and ventilators and vaccines. 

 

[00:22:48] Máximo Torero

Exactly. But they forgot that we need to move food, so the prices of food started to increase, and many countries started to put export restrictions. And then we came with a [inaudible] recording from my [inaudible] saying there is no health without food. And we started talking with traders and working with governments. And then food was elevated to the level of health. But that taught us as FAO that look, logistics are central in agriculture. We learned that in COVID-19. Thanks God there was not a food crisis because there was no need to be a food crisis. There was enough food. 

And then happens the war in Ukraine. Overnight this started. They blocked the Black Sea. One of the key exporters of wheat, Ukraine, overnight decided to stop exporting. Sunflower was not moving out. And then countries as a response blocked fertilizers from the Russian Federation and natural gas. Fertilizer prices moved up. Now, the good news for the farmers was commodity prices were high. So, the increase in input prices was compensated by the increase in commodity prices. Therefore, they could survive, in difference to what is happening now. 

But then what happened is we started to work with the UN to open the Black Sea with the Secretary-General's initiative. We were very involved in that. The Black Sea is open. Luckily, food is starting to move. Prices started to settle. Fertilizers ended up moving at a higher price, but it was a boom for the fertilizer industry in those days. So, we were recovering from the war, which still continues. But you see that we were resilient because the reduction... One of the big consequences of the war in Ukraine is that Ukraine is no longer a key exporter of wheat. What happened then is that other countries responded to it. So, the supply response happened. Brazil produced more wheat. The US produced more wheat. So, Ukraine no longer was a problem, although the war continues. 

But now then comes the Strait of Hormuz. Now, what people don't understand is that in difference to the war in Ukraine, this is a supply shock that is restricting 20% to 30% of the key inputs for agriculture. So, it's oil, fertilizers, natural gas, sulfur for phosphates. All that is out of the world, is out the market. No longer exists. Okay. So, prices increase of those inputs, but you cannot have a supply response that in the time of Ukraine with the wheat. Because to produce those inputs, you require investments of three to four years. So, the supply response will never happen. Okay, so it's a real supply shock. And the only solution under a supply shock is that you consume less. And that's what we are starting to observe. In oil also, you have to consume less fuel. 

 

 

[00:25:33] Melissa Fleming

How does that work in agriculture? 

 

[00:25:36] Máximo Torero

In agriculture it's terrible because I came to understand that 70% of the pumping for irrigation is using diesel. All the agriculture of Australia is with diesel. So, imagine these farmers are being affected [inaudible]. So, farmers have to make choices. I produce the same and I go into bankruptcy with the same inputs, or I produce with less inputs and therefore I have lower yields. Or I shift to commodities which need less nitrogen, like moving from wheat and corn to soybeans. Or I sell my production to biofuels. So those are the hard choices that they... 

And they have already made the choices because also something that people don't get is that agriculture has a calendar, has a crop calendar. And you cannot change the calendar. It's based on climate. It's based on agroecological conditions. So, after 90 days, all the crop calendars of the world were impacted. So, we have affected this season. Now we're going to affect the next season. So, we're in a tough situation. Luckily, we had very good harvests before. That's why prices of commodities are not so high. But rice is increasing. Soybeans is increasing and durum wheat is increasing. And this could evolve even worse if El Niño hits harder. 

And then you see all the complexity of this sector - logistical problems, geopolitics and then you have climate. All at the same time. I don't want to call it the perfect storm because we don't know with El Niño what will happen. It depends on if there is more rain and where and if there's less rain and how much of the big exporting countries will be impacted. 

But of course, the expectation is by the end of the year, prices will go up and then it takes time for the food prices. So, one thing is the wheat, the other thing is bread. The durum wheat or the pasta. That's different. Like only 5% of the bread is wheat. The rest is energy, water, other things - labour. The same with pasta. That takes three to six months to transmit. So, the increase, we will start to feel it. If you go here, food is more expensive now than when I came few months ago. And across the world, this is starting to happen, but people don't feel it yet. It's different to your pump for your car - oil. 

 

[00:27:41] Melissa Fleming

That's almost immediate. 

 

[00:27:42] Máximo Torero

That's immediate. Food takes time, but we will feel it and then people will start to react. But we need to do as much as we can to ensure that we inform the world what amount of food we have to avoid export restrictions, to avoid less food, and to avoid uncertainties because uncertainties by itself can increase prices. So that's a little bit the job that we have. That's what keeps me awake because I have to be like this with the numbers. I need to know what is happening because if a government asks us, we need to help them and we need to respond. And I have an amazing team. But we are basically working seven days a week and anytime we are on call, and we have to go and do things. 

 

[00:28:23] Melissa Fleming

Is there anything that can come out of this that could be hopeful? For example, the Secretary-General is hopeful that this will spark a faster transition to renewable energy because countries just don't want to be so dependent. 

 

[00:28:39] Máximo Torero

No, for sure. There has been a huge revolution in transition and diversification of the energy mix in the last years since Ukraine. The velocity of the transition. You go to China, 60% of the cars on the roads are green cars. The US has moved slower, but many European countries have also accelerated. So, transition in the global way has happened and is happening and needs to happen faster. 

 

[00:29:03] Melissa Fleming

What about in the agricultural sector? 

 

[00:29:04] Máximo Torero

But in the agriculture sector, no. That's what was a surprise to me. That 70% of the pumping is with diesel pumps was a surprise. And that's a win-win situation. Because if a bank has to invest, the World Bank or the ADB or the CAF or the Asian Development Bank or African Development Bank, it's the perfect investment. You just invest in renewable energy. It is sustainable. Less emissions and diversify your risk. 

 

[00:29:35] Melissa Fleming

We have seen terrible hunger in the last years in places like Sudan and in Gaza. Does this...? I know that you're in Rome. Your neighbour is the World Food Programme, and I know that you work very closely together. How does that make you feel when you see hunger like that? 

 

[00:29:56] Máximo Torero

No, it's terrible, and I think the stories are different. Gaza should not have happened. It's something that shouldn't have happened and it's something that is dramatic. Our job, again, as civil servants, we have to respect our job, which is technically to provide evidence to try to resolve the problem. 

 

[00:30:20] Melissa Fleming

I mean, in Gaza, one of the big issues, which is the food was there to deliver. It was the access. But also, it must've been very painful to see crops being destroyed. 

 

[00:30:30] Máximo Torero

Super painful. But they destroyed... All the agro part was destroyed. Our job was to take care of livestock, take care of plants. We were criticized because while people were in hunger, we were trying to deliver feed for animals. But people must understand that an animal can feed many people. So, the effect is indirect, but super important. So, a lot of challenges and things that shouldn't have happened that happened. 

But then you have situations like Sudan and DRC and other countries which are in this complete problem of conflicts, internal conflicts, and that we cannot create a solution. Haiti, for example, is another situation. So, we have to innovate. We have to think differently. Like in Haiti, we are trying to create growth poles in the south and in the north. Forget about the capital and see if that helps to reduce the pressure on the capital. And that will help us at least to have food available for people to eat. 

In South Sudan, part of Hand-in-Hand, for example, we... South Sudan, the climate is perfect for rice. So, we developed a project on 1,000 hectares on rice, and they can scale this up. So, it's a resistant variety that people can consume, and then you can trade within Africa. So, I think we need to innovate case by case and try to find solutions. But yes, the combination of conflict, climate, and slowdowns and downturns is a pretty complex situation. 

 

[00:32:02] Melissa Fleming

Do you get frustrated? 

 

[00:32:05] Máximo Torero

A lot, because sometimes it gets to a point that you bring evidence, you have your teams working like crazy to bring evidence to others so that they can implement things. And then because of egos and because of things that nobody understands, those things are not implemented. And that's where you lose patience, because it doesn't make any sense. It's ridiculous. It's not their money. It is the money of others that you are being given to manage properly, and you should manage properly. But we don't have a mechanism of accountability, which is a complexity. 

 

[00:32:48] Melissa Fleming

Is there anything that you're hopeful about? 

 

 

[00:32:52] Máximo Torero

I'm always hopeful. For me, I am impressed that despite all these shocks, in COVID-19, you had food. In the war in Ukraine, you had food. Today we have food. Could be more expensive, but we have food. So, these farmers have really shown how strong they are and how resilient they are, and we need to help them. 

 

[00:33:13] Melissa Fleming

You've been living in Rome for eight years. Do you like living there? 

 

[00:33:19] Máximo Torero

For me Rome is beautiful. And I am... So, in Italian, my job is Capo Máximo in front of Circo Massimo... What else can you ask? 

 

[00:33:26] Melissa Fleming

Did you learn the language?  

 

[00:33:28] Máximo Torero

No, I don't have time. My wife learned the language. I didn't. But you know, in Italy, you can speak Spanish and people will understand you. 

 

[00:33:36] Melissa Fleming

Yeah? 

 

[00:33:37] Máximo Torero

Yeah, Italy... So Rome is different to Italy because Italy is different. You have Milan, which is like any European country, but Rome is kind of a beautiful, chaotic equilibrium, which is very similar to my country in that sense. People are very nice and it's a place that loves food and treats food in the way it should be. No, I'm very happy there, although I spent in net three months in Rome. I am all around the world, so I am very little in Rome but it's an amazing place and which has hosted us. Beautiful. So, I'm very happy there. 

 

[00:34:09] Melissa Fleming

And your wife tolerates all your travel? 

 

[00:34:12] Máximo Torero

Yeah. She's a great woman. 

 

[00:34:14] Melissa Fleming

Do you have kids? 

 

[00:34:16] Máximo Torero

Yes, I have two kids. 

 

[00:34:16] Melissa Fleming

Did they follow in your footsteps? 

 

[00:34:18] Máximo Torero

Not at all. They follow their mother. One is a film writer. And my daughter is an environmental person. So, she just finished her undergrad in environmental science, but she also likes a lot art history. So, she's doing art history and languages. She loves Arabic. So, very different to what I do, which I love. I think it's great. They chose complex careers, but I am sure they will do well. 

 

[00:34:46] Melissa Fleming

Oh, that's nice. Can you ever imagine a world without hunger? 

 

[00:34:53] Máximo Torero

I really hope, because it's possible. That's the issue. Right now, we are saying for South America it's possible to achieve the 2030 goal. Asia will be a little bit more difficult because of the magnitude, but again, they are moving very fast in reducing hunger. And Africa has to change. But I think Africa, like the song of Shakira, it's the time for Africa. 

 

[00:35:15] Melissa Fleming

Why is it the time for Africa? 

 

[00:35:17] Máximo Torero

Because it's a huge opportunity for them. They have a huge space to grow in agriculture. They have land that has been basically organic. They use very little fertilizers. These governments need to fix their act and start to work better. 

 

[00:35:34] Melissa Fleming

And what do most farmers have in common? 

 

[00:35:38] Máximo Torero

I think all of them have an enormous amount of knowledge. They really know what they do. We normally used to say, okay, this farmer doesn't know how to grow. No. Be careful. He knows how to grow in the conditions he is in and with the restrictions he has. And that sometimes we don't understand. 

So, farmers, because of that, have a very high discount rate. What it means. I can offer you $10 tomorrow or $1 today. Farmers will pick the $1 because they have such a budget constraint that they want the money now. They need to use it now. And we don't understand those hyperbolic discount rates. So, I always appreciate the knowledge of farmers. 

I remember when I was in Calamarca. I went there 23rd of December. And there is only one airport. There is only one place [inaudible]. So, I was in the school with my kids at the school. Not my kids, the kids of the school. And the farmer comes to me and says, (it was a shiny, beautiful day), 'It's going to rain today.' I say, 'No. There's no way it's going to rain.' And if it rains, the plane doesn't go down. So, I arrived to the plane. I was going to lose Christmas and there starts a terrible rain. I see the plane up. It was never going to go down. But luckily there was a smaller plane, a very little plane that came because of my need. So, I saw that the little plane was landing. So, I went and bought the tickets for me and my team. So, the plane landed. We ran to the plane and we left. 

But you see the knowledge of this farmer. Nobody would tell you that it was going to rain that day. There were no clouds, but the guy said it was going to rain and he was right. So, we need to value that a lot. Technology helps, of course. We can bring technology, try to give them as much as we can. But never, never don't value their knowledge. 

 

 

[00:37:35] Melissa Fleming

Thank you, Máximo. Thank you for sharing... 

 

[00:37:38] Máximo Torero

My pleasure. 

 

[00:37:39] Melissa Fleming

Your knowledge, which is remarkable and fascinating. And I learned a lot. So, thank you for doing what you do. 

 

[00:37:46] Máximo Torero

Thank you so much. A pleasure to be with you. 

 

[00:37:49] Melissa Fleming

Hopefully we'll achieve all of those goals, and more governments will listen to your advice. 

 

[00:37:55] Máximo Torero

I'm sure we will work [it] out. Thank you.

 

[00:37:58] Melissa Fleming

Thank you for listening to Awake at Night. We'll be back soon with more incredible and inspiring stories from people working against huge challenges to make this world a better and safer place. 

To find out more about the series and the extraordinary people featured, do visit un.org/awake-at-night. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and please take the time to review us. It helps more people to find the show. 

Thanks to my editor Bethany Bell and to my colleagues at the UN: Katerina Kitidi, Roberta Politi, Geneva Damayanti, Abby Vardeleon, Alison Corbet, Laura Rodriguez de Castro, Eric Balgley, Jason Candler, Benji Candelario, Anzhelika Devis, Tulin Battikhi, Bissera Kostova, Brianna Rowe, Joon Park, and Taeyoung Lee. The original music for this podcast was written and performed by Nadine Shah and produced by Ben Hillier.