Lawrence Haddad: Good afternoon and good evening, everybody - welcome to the session, If the farmer grows, who will buy? Building demand under the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils.
My name is Lawrence Haddad. I'm the executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the purpose of this conversation today is really to share with you the early thinking from CIMMYT, FAO and GAIN about how to strengthen the VACS programme via a focus on who will buy the crops.
Dr Fowler, who you'll be hearing from in just a second, often characterises VACS, and the crops associated with it as ‘opportunity crops’. But to seize the opportunity, we need to introduce strong motivations from governments, consumers and others to acquire the crops. And we need to generate the means to connect the farmers to the markets and to the consumers.
So when you have opportunity, motive and means, you really have a big change. We'd like to get comments from you, critiques from you, suggestions on how to improve, what you hear, in terms of the demand and value chain work that we are adding to the VACS program.
The Q&A box is the place to put your questions. We will try to answer them as soon as they come up. And if we don't get a chance to answer them as soon as they come up, we will definitely answer them in the 40 minute Q&A session.
So, without further ado, let me introduce Dr Cary Fowler. Cary is the Special Envoy for Global Food Security and the Office of Global Food Security at the US Department of State, and he's best known, perhaps, as the father of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which the UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon at the time described as an inspirational symbol of peace and food security for the entire humanity.
I would say this has never been more relevant than it is today. This facility provides ultimate security for more than one million unique crop varieties, and is the biological foundation of agriculture and the raw material for all future plant breeding and crop improvement efforts. Cary is the former executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is an international organisation co-sponsored by FAO and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
And, of course, Cary, along with Geoffrey Hawtin, was the 2024 World Food Prize laureate. Cary, over to you to tell us about VACS and demand.
Dr. Cary Fowler: Oh, thanks, Lawrence. Good to see you. And I should mention that, the person introducing me is also a World Food Prize laureate. Thanks to FAO, GAIN, to CIMMYT for co-hosting this meeting today, you know, the, we launched the Vision for Adaptive Crops and Soils, less than two years ago, actually, with FAO and with the African Union.
And in the last two years, it seems to me that this vision for adapted crops and soils or ‘VACS’ has really grown into something of a movement. We've established a VACS champions group, which has quite a few organisations and a number of private sector companies that have committed to promoting, and using new and additional funding, for instance, in new and additional programming to support the VACS goals.
We established a VACS community of practice because so many people were really contacting us to ask what they could do to, to, get physically involved in this. And we've been hosting a number of webinar meetings and that's engaged more than a thousand practitioners in the field. And then, ten different governments.
And then, additionally, some private sector companies have put funding into this, and they funded, some the main implementers, IFAD and the Crop Trust and FAO and the CGIAR. And then and finally, just a couple of months ago, CIMMYT, on behalf of the CGIAR and FAO, established a joint partnership with staffing that essentially functions as a secretariat.
But, we have a mechanism for collaboration and coordination of all the people and organisations that are involved in this.
I think almost from the very beginning. Thank you. Thank you. Lawrence. We have, and thank you, Lynette, who will speak after me? We've been focusing on nutrition, and I, personally, have been struck by how impactful it is to think about food systems from the vantage point of nutrition.
We typically talk about food security. And I think for nine people out of ten, what food security means is how much of the major staples are we producing and are we filling people's bellies with calories? But if you think about nutrition security, if you just change that one word from food security to nutrition security, it really frees up your mind to think about a whole range of crops and foods that are important for really helping people become healthy.
And that's really what, what a food system, ought to do. It's interesting to me, if you think about agricultural history, that there's probably no agricultural system in the world that was ever truly founded on the basis of nutrition. So what happened? If you think back to the Neolithic days when crops were being domesticated, 12, 13, 14,000 years ago, there were thousands of crops that were domesticated.
But in the process of, of, particularly of modern plant breeding, which was started after the rediscovery of Mendel's law of heredity in 1900, that list really became much, much smaller. In a sense. We've been putting all of our eggs in one basket, and that one basket contains just some of the major staple crops, 3 or 4 crops, or maybe 10 or 12.
But at the most it's a handful of crops. And that's kind of a risky strategy when you think about it, particularly in the light of climate change, which we have experienced. Now we had something like 549, I think maybe 550, consecutive months in which the global average temperature has exceeded the 20th century average for that month. And we're headed into uncharted territory, into climates and environments that have really never before existed on Earth. The projection for how some of our major crops are going to fare in a new climate situation is not a very positive one.
In fact, their projections of decreases in productivity by 2050. So it behooves us, I think, to look at a much broader range of crops. And, this presents a real opportunity for us to focus on not just those crops, but on the nutritional value of those crops. So, with the vision for adapted crops and soils, we set about to have a process that would first identify the crops that held out the indigenous and traditional crops, which focused on Africa in the beginning days.
Which of those crops had the most potential for providing good nutrition year round in all parts of Africa? Thanks to Lynnette and her colleagues at FAO and, and others outside, we we narrowed down that list of starting with, I think, 300 or so crops, indigenous crops in Africa to about 60 and then, with, with, organizations like AgMIP, we looked at how those crops would fare in a climate changing world.
It's not good enough for them simply to be nutrition rich. They also are going to have to be productive in a climate changing world. So we highlighted a number of crops, a lot of legumes, grass pea, pigeon pea, lablab, etc. African yam bean, but also some cereals, finger millet and such as having a lot of potential to provide nutrition and also do well, in, in climate change.
And we're hoping that what that will do then is to drive investments in these crops. The question then, I think that we're going to be looking at today is about consumer demand, and how to build that demand. I don't think the question is really, do these crops taste good or taste bad or have been growing some of the (..) farm?
They're fine. But how do we make those connections between farmers and the marketplace to, to drive, utilisation of these crops? GAIN has a fantastic history in that regard. A lot of experience and expertise. Some of this has been great at reaching farmers with seed systems. FAO has looked at the theory of change for this and has worked on policy issues and such.
And that combination of organisations, I think really, suits us well. So I'm really happy to have those organizations in the forefront leading this discussion today. And I look forward to what, everyone has to contribute. Thank you.
Lawrence Haddad: Thank you so much, Cary. That was great. I completely agree with you on the need for greater diversity in the types of crops where they're grown, who's growing them, why are we growing them and how we are growing them?
And, it's not just about, as you said. It's not just about mitigating risk. It's about identifying new opportunities that we would never have understood or explored if we hadn't diversified. And I can't tell you how many times I have to explain the difference to very senior leaders in government and elsewhere about the difference between food security and nutrition security.
So it's so refreshing that nutrition was right there from day one. And that's down to your leadership. So thank you so much for that. Let's now turn to one of the best nutritionists in the world, Doctor Lynnette Neufeld. She is the director of food and nutrition at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. She was previously the director of knowledge leadership at GAIN, doing our work on monitoring, learning and research.And, now, of course, she's the director of food and nutrition. In ESM of FAO.
I wanted to call this whole session, ‘Field of Dreams?’ after the Kevin Costner movie where he said, build it and they will come. But the GAIN comms team wouldn't let me. So I know you're going to talk us through the importance of demand as a pull factor motivating producers to produce VACs crops. Over to you.
Dr Lynnette Neufeld: Thanks very much, Lawrence. And thanks for the opportunity to to talk to you a little bit about demand today. So I want to talk to you, just for a few minutes about the theory of change that, has been mentioned a couple of times now, and, and that's a lot of words on there, so don't worry about it, please don't try to read all those words.
Let's take a moment to focus on the colours, because this, this theory of change is meant to highlight what right from the very beginning was the vision that Cary brought to us when he came to talk to us with, with some colleagues, about this new idea of the the VACs, which wasn't called VACs right from the outset.
But, when he came to speak to us and that vision said, we need to do something about, the food system and the impact of climate change and land degradation on, land suitability and cropping systems and the production, ultimately, of foods. That's really fundamental, though those impacts need to be mitigated now and into the future.
But at the same time, as has already been discussed, that at the same time needs to lead to more diverse and adequate diets that contribute to nutrition, and all those related health health outcomes that we all know. So that's really the ultimate dual impact that VACs right from its outset has been aiming for. But if we then jump all the way to the other side here, what does it take to do that?
Clearly there we have to have healthy soils. We need to have the seed systems that enable the production and the production has to happen, which is our arc of work in blue. I'm not going to read the boxes. You can see here, how we articulated some of the constraints that limit that area, some of the actions under an umbrella of VACs that can, that can happen to address those challenges, some of the direct outputs, leading to more tangible outcomes and then that ultimate outcome.
So, that track of actions on soil, seeds and productions is fundamental. It is a necessary but insufficient condition, as we like to say in epidemiology, to realise those, those impacts. So what else is needed? Well, two other things. First of all, we have to have a supportive environment for the production of those crops to be scaled up through policies, investments and collaboration.
And that's that orange track that you see, moving through this theory of change. And then obviously what we're talking about mostly today, the market developments and the consumer demand go hand in hand at the bottom here in green. So let's take a moment, to, to talk about those specifically. So a part of the challenge that we have here is just like the seeds have not necessarily been a part of research, the system, the seed systems aren't necessarily set up, nor are the… developed the value chains and the markets necessarily developed for these nutritious opportunity crops as they're being referred to, and nutritious foods that may be made from them.
Recognising that not everybody in the world is only eating a crop as a product in itself. But there's an opportunity to be producing nutritious foods that are made from those nutritious crops as well. And consumers don't necessarily always choose those opportunity crops, perhaps because they're unknown, because they're unavailable, because they're unaffordable, perhaps because they're very difficult to, and labor intensive to process, before they can be consumed.
So there's many reasons why consumers may not choose to consume them. And this whole area in the green is meant to address that. So developing markets, developing value chains, developing that consumer demand not only through knowledge. And we're going to come back to that, but through a whole series of activities that can bring together and realise that that potential for opportunity crops to be available, affordable, convenient to consumers and ultimately consumed by them, contributing to those healthier diets, that that is the aim.
Let's take a look at a couple of those areas. And just here we go back to that dual income outcome. That dual outcome cannot be achieved unless those three areas work simultaneously together. Farmers may plant one round of crops. But if there's no demand for that, they're certainly not going to do it again, even if they are willing to do it once.
So we have to bring those two together right from the outset. And enough said on that, because we've already heard a little bit about that. So what does it take to do that? As I mentioned, the foods may be unknown, or they may be traditional, but they've lost their value in the diet over time or with the pressures of the food system that has, as you are all well aware, there is an abundance of unhealthy foods on the market, often very inexpensive, very convenient, very tasty, competing with foods that may not be initially more tasty unless you know how to prepare them, unless some of that processing has been has been addressed.
So it's not only that they may be unaware, they may not be valued, but they also may be comparatively more expensive. And so that series of actions, in VACS, that brings these together can address some of those. But ultimately we have to come back to that demand. And I would like to call your attention to this, video - very short, very nice video about, a woman in Ecuador who is, aiming to draw awareness of many of the plants, nutritious plants that that are grown in her region that have been part of the diet over the course of history, but have often been forgotten and some of those kind of activities at a very small scale can have a really, really important impact in that community. And that's her goal, this particular ‘model farm’ that she's set up is influencing farming in the direct vicinity around her. But that's really small scale. And if we're going to have that influence, in fact, we've got to go… We need to build on these ideas in these great examples that are out there and the initiative of so many people. But it has to be done at a much bigger scale to enable the changes to diets that, large-scale in population.
How do we do that? And I'm going to refer you here to, a paper that we put together, with a small community of practice. Well, not so small. Quite a few people actually participated. This was a part of the VACS community practice. I'm. I will defer to colleagues later to talk about where those made the documents that we prepared, will eventually be able to be found. But within that document, we focused on three buckets or areas of action.
One of them is obviously enhancing consumer demand directly. And that's that motivation. And you know, when we think about what does it takes for people to consume healthy foods or to make changes in their diet? They need knowledge, they need opportunity, they need motivation, and they need that…. Obviously, the availability and affordability. But that knowledge, opportunity and motivation is something that we need to create through these activities and creative activities.
You're going to hear about some of those creative activities that can do that, in the next presentations. But we also have to have our guidance and remembering that link with the policy section. Most countries, you know, our principles of what is a healthy diet are universal principles. We published a joint statement with that last year, FAO and WHO, and those principles of diversity, adequacy, balance and moderation of unhealthy foods, those are universal principles.
But how does that relate to what's healthy in a healthy diet in a context? Those are articulated in food based dietary guidelines, national or even subnational food based dietary guidelines. We've got to get these opportunity crops referred to in those food based dietary guidelines, because that's what forms the basis of public facing education in countries, and it forms the basis of public procurement that I'll talk about in a moment.
So then the next pillar that we talk about in developing this note is around getting the the private sector to use their innovation capacity to get that food into a form that the consumers will, will want to buy that address some of those questions, those, those challenges of convenience and, and and availability that I mentioned, that's really fundamental.
We know that millets are one of those crops that are included in the opportunity crops. There's a fair amount of processing involved in millets. And part of the reason they may have been taken, second stage in, in some point in history is the amount of work that is required compared to maize or another product, that it might be a substitute for.
Business has a huge role there in creating nutritious products. But we need to be a little bit careful in that work. And again, this is that link with policy that's so fundamental. These should continue to be nutritious, not highly processed snack foods that are filled with sugar and unhealthy fats and so forth. Nutritious foods that can be available and affordable to consumers.
And then finally, public procurement is an enormous way to reach populations directly, through schools and other, programs that provide foods. So that consumption happens right there at that moment. But it can also be a message to go home and be a virtuous cycle, to create demand from households and from families. So school meals programs is an enormous opportunity. They are existing in dozens of countries, and that that link with the market and the production locally of opportunity crops is an enormous opportunity to create that demand and to reach vulnerable groups that are vulnerable to malnutrition, such as school age children.
So with that include effective and sustained consumer demand for opportunity crops and nutritious foods that are made from them will enable that regular consumption, which is a necessary condition to achieve the aims of, VACS, which is that improved diets for nutrition, motivating farmers to produce and innovate is a fundamental component of that. And as mentioned, a virtuous cycle to bring back demand.
Both from farmers to produce and from consumers to consume. Thanks.
Lawrence Hadded: Thank you. Lynnette, that was wonderful. It's so great to see a theory of change, I can't tell you. And you know how many initiatives, global initiatives, national initiatives, get launched. And two years later, someone says it'd be great to have a theory of change, so we had one happen right from the get go.
It talks about the production side. It, it talks about scale up from policy, and it talks about market development and how those three things need to be continually intertwined. You also introduced this, triad of terms, the availability of VACS, the affordability of VACS, the desirability of VACS crops, really important to keep that in mind all the time.
And, you know, creating demand for new foods, foods that are new to consumers and governments is really challenging. One of the things that gives me cause for optimism is that there's a big incentive. I think, further on the environmental side, as well as on the health and nutrition side, and if we can align those two incentives, well, then we have a more powerful alliance to change the way things are done.
And finally, I, I completely agree. We need to resist the temptation to make sure that VACS crops are not going into sugar glazed donuts. We need to make sure that these crops, yes, of course they can be processed, but they mustn't be ultra processed. Otherwise, we were solving one problem and creating a much bigger one.
So thank you for that. Now I want to pass over to, Dr. Prasanna Boddupalli, who's a distinguished scientist and regional director for Asia at CIMMYT and the CGIAR VACS Technical Representative, and then Bharat Bangari, who is one of my colleagues at GAIN, who's the lead for our nutrient enriched crops program. And they will talk to us about possible models for demand creation.
We also already have a question in the Q&A session from Ann Tutwiler. So, colleagues who are not presenting begin thinking about how to answer that question, which essentially is saying, don't tell me what your priorities are. Show me. Show me your budgets. If you think it's so important, allocate resources to it. Dr. Prasanna, over to you.
Prasanna Boddupalli: Thank you very much, Lawrence. And, for GAIN to organise this, extremely important webinar. And together with GAIN, CIMMYT has worked on, some possible models for building demand for the VACS opportunity crops in Africa. So Bharat will assist me in presenting some part of this presentation whhile I will do the rest. This is a question that, often we have to ask ourselves is the path below for the VACS opportunity crops in Africa (…) then diverse products in the market, improved consumption of these, VACS crops and improved livelihoods. So as this webinar asks this fundamental question, if the farmer produces more of these crops beyond the home consumption, who will buy?
And, the question that I would add to this is it'd be market opportunities for sustainable income, to those VAC crop producers. So as Lynnette very eloquently highlighted, the demand creation is therefore critical for sustainability of the VACS initiative and for us to achieve those desired outcomes, including better incomes to the smallholders, climate adaptation, diversified and resilient agri food systems, and improved nutritional, well-being of the consumers.
Bharat will now talk to us about, a few of those typologies for demand creation that we can possibly build on, in the coming years
Bharat Bangari: Thank you, Dr Prasanna, Lawrence, for giving us the spotlight here. So, in, in one of the working groups of the VACS initiative, we, along with a lot of colleagues from other organisations, came to the overall conclusion. And this is not the final conclusion that there are these five typologies that we can explore. And a lot of organisations have been working in this space to create demand. And as, Doctor Neufeld also suggested that there are three ways and we have, kind of expanded to five.
So the first is the institutional pathway where we talk about governments, government programmes, large, donor programmes, and school meal programmes.
Some of the examples are also highlighted below the typology. So, one of the works that GAIN has done previously is on by biofortified zinc rice procurement in Bangladesh, where the government of Bangladesh is heavily involved in the procurement of this grain.
Second kind of typology is the consumer demand, which we all are pretty much aware of.
And this is directly going to the markets creating those social behaviour change, communication and highlighting and amplifying the usefulness of particular crops. So such works are also being done in various countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
The third kind of work, which is mostly in the private sector, is the value chain actors. Here we are talking about the millers and processors and these intermediate, value chain actors across the value chain of any crop.So here we are talking about these millers across various countries who procure large quantities of a particular crop.
The fourth kind of typology that we have identified is international exports. And one of the examples is Tanzania and Malawi and Mozambique, which are producing a lot of pulses for consumption in Asia.
And then the final and, I mean, this is the last and not the least, important, typology, which is the consumption at the producer household.
And a lot of our colleagues at GAIN and, and also at various other implementing organisations are working on this space where we are trying to increase the consuming at the producer household level. And, so, these are five typologies. I will give it back to Dr Prasanna, to talk more about the model, for demand creation VACS. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Prasanna Boddupalli: Thank you so much, Bharat. So this is one of the possible models that we can work on. One is, the regional hub and spoke model for market development in Africa for the VACS opportunity crops, GAIN and CIMMYT, are contemplating on these three hubs - Kenya as a hub in eastern Africa, Zambia in southern Africa and Ghana in west Africa.
And there could be multiple spokes around this. The ones that I highlighted here, in lighter colours, are those where VACS initiative is already working, be it with regard to seed systems or breeding, capacity building and others. So, these three regional market development hubs, will work on specific country crop combinations, focusing on each of the regions based on demand and then operationalising the five demand typologies that Bharat presented.
And in addition to that, offering technical advisory services, to your area of public and private sector institutions that are focused on demand creation. All these need to be undertaken with a clear alignment with the national vision and national level activities. We need to develop country level profiles, for each of those targeted opportunity crops, define those country crop combinations for demand creation based on various indices, including gender and social dynamics, market opportunities, export opportunities, and so on.
Generate and validate consumer insights that should form the basis, for national level activities and do intensive marketing and promotion of value chain activities in which, private sector has to play a very critical role, as Lynnette has identified in her presentation too - this needs to happen simultaneously with, policy advocacy and mobilisation of resources, for various initiatives.
UN agencies, especially, have such a huge convening power to do this, together with, implementing institutions and for this CIMMYT could be another platform through which we can advocate for this intensive change on building demand for the opportunity crops. And we need to work together with the national governments and make VACS crops an integral part of their agricultural vision for the country.
There is already some ongoing work on demand creation, for example, on the vacs systems which CIMMYT is implementing together with the seed systems group, as well as an area of almost 35 scaling partners in six countries. Small seed VACS of these improved varieties targeted improved varieties, of crops like, pigeon pea, mung bean, amaranth, all millet, finger millet are being produced by our partners and over 48,000, small seed packs have been distributed in year one itself, of the seven VACS crops.
And as you can see here, a large number of these have reached female farmers. This is absolutely important. We need to keep that gender, youth and social inclusion in our effort. Very firmly. Besides that massive field demos and field days are other major activities. Over 600 demos, 70 field days to showcase the performance of these targeted VACS crop varieties and training of the farmers.Especially of women, on various aspects of community based seed production of VACS varieties.
The third element is partnerships for enhanced value addition and market linkages. For example, we are now working with Tecnoserve, in Malawi and Zambia, and through Technoserve providing customised technical support for ten local food processors. And, in doing so, we also are conscious about facilitating, gendered participatory market mapping and providing direct linkages of the processors with the producers.
And through VACS demand creation, we also need to intensify the work on business development services. Especially to the small and medium enterprises in all this endeavor, behavioral change for increased consumption and nutrition is very critical. We need to identify entry points for behavioral change campaigns, based on local knowledge, demographic, socio cultural factors, gender norms, and social norms that affect preferences of the farming communities.
Engaging both men and youth. Besides women in household nutrition, decision making is key, and we also need to ponder what would it take to change consumer perceptions? Opportunity crops need to be part of the basic, necessary food items and, as Lynnette said, must still be affordable and when calories are readily and cheaply available, people will respond to nutritional education.
We also need to use multiple media channels, including social media, again with the equity and inclusion lens. Thus the impacts of various approaches to nutrition education for example, school feeding programs, school curriculum, home gardening, TV radio programmes, and identify influencers and VACS ambassadors to take this behavioral change for increased consumption and nutrition to the next level. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Lawrence Haddad: Thank you Prasanna. Thank you Bharat. Lots of really interesting questions raised in my mind. You know, how do we get VACS crops to be really attractive? That's going to be difficult. It's going to be a challenge. We have to. And if we do manage to get them to be attractive, how do we know there's going to be an adequate supply?
And one of the lessons we learned in GAIN, came from nutrient enhanced crops trying to get them consumed, was that once we cracked the demand side, then the supply side became problematic. So this policy, the need for policy to scale and incentivise production is really, really important. It's a really difficult balance between supply and demand here.
You want them both to move forward at an interlocking rate. Lots of issues in the food value chains as well. How safe are these foods going to be? How easy is it to process them? What are their storage properties, what are their cooking properties? What are their organoleptic - Not just taste, but the feel within the mouth?
What are those properties all going to be about? And then we have to be really careful. I think the narrative is going to be really challenging for VACS crops and we have got to be really smart about it because any absence of information, any absence of, of, a narrative is going to create space for conspiracy theories.
And I can just imagine the headlines, VACS crops, kids being tested for VACS crops, kids being used as experiments for VACS crops in schools. So we have to be really careful and really smart about all of these different dimensions.
Colleagues. This is now we turn over to you in the audience. We have about 160 of you.
We've already got two comments, one from Margaret, question one from Margaret Tutwiler. And one from Ann Trevenen-Jones, I hope, panelist you can see those? Who would like to pick up the question from Ann Tutwiler about, how do we reflect, how do we not only… how do we have to shift consumers and shift governments and shift farmers, we also have to shift, funders, and we have to shift the research infrastructure.
Who would like to pick up on that one first? Can maybe I can ask Cary, if you're here, you must have thought about Ann's question quite a bit. Can I ask you to take that one on?
Cary Fowler: You're throwing the CGIAR question to me?
Lawrence Haddad: The hardest question!
Cary Fowler: Yes I did… I used to work for them. You know what I've found and I'm not sure this will satisfy Ann, who is a good friend. It is really an openness in the CGIAR that I, I don't think was there perhaps for, for good reason, years ago.
But, certainly if you look at CIMMYT, which is the largest of the CGIAR centers and, and arguably one of the leaders, that centre has been at the forefront of promoting VACS. Now there's the… You could look at the flip side of that coin, and say, well, what would have happened with our VACS movement, if you will, had CIMMYT opposed this or just decided to stay home?
We wouldn't be where we are today. We wouldn't be having this webinar. But the fact that we've got major agricultural institutions now embracing this, is, is, I think, a game changer. I take the point that ultimately this will have to be reflected in budgets. And I think that'll take a little time, but, but in talking with some of the leadership, not just not CIMMYT, but CGIAR leadership, I know they're on board.
The chair of the CGIAR, System Board was co-chairing our initial VACS meetings, for example. So, I think this is going to happen, and I think it all revolves around taking a broader look at what we're trying to do. So our job, if you're a CGIAR person, is not simply to produce and improve variety of one of the major staples, but it's to look at the whole picture, which is about nutrition security, and it's to join it together with climate adaptation.
And by gosh, where did the soils fit into this? And putting that together in one whole package. It's no accident, by the way, that a number of the opportunity crops, which are sort of an indicative list. It's not an exclusive list that so many of those crops are, legume crops which are high in protein, high nutrition, and great for the soil.
So, I hope what this is doing is creating a context in which we think more holistically about what we're doing, and we combine as many of those elements as possible in our day to day work.
Lawrence Haddad: Thank you. I mean, I'm also optimistic. You know, the CG is under so much pressure to deliver on multiple fronts at the same time. And VACS seems to, to me, to offer that opportunity, that possibility to deliver on resilience, on climate, on nutrition, maybe and maybe even on jobs. I think the key challenge has always been it's really difficult to track the budgets in the CGIAR. And I really hope that, as Ismahane, and others who lead the CGIAR now, will make their budgets more transparent and easy, easier to interrogate from a perspective of, which crop attribute and which outcomes are being targeted by which interventions?
I know, I know, there's a big effort to do this for the climate within the CG. And I hope we can do it more broadly. Governments are doing it through the 3FS initiative, and I hope the CG would also submit itself to that process. But the CG is not just about the centres. And yeah, I think you're right about CIMMYT.
It's about the donors and it's about the governments. Ultimately, we need pressure on all fronts to get the CG changed. Lynnette, did you want to come in on that or anyone else want to come in on that question? No. Okay. Yes. No, no. Okay. Let's go to another one. There's a question here from, a question for, Doctor Prasanna and Bharat.
Community boards have been used successfully for market development for coffee, eggs, milk, etc.. How are you imagining? Is that how you imagine these hubs to work? So how do the hubs kind of work - over to you?
Prasanna Boddupalli: Okay, the hub model will not rely only upon the commodity boards, but it's also a kind of a technical support group.
It's not limited to one institution. It's a confluence of institutions or a consortium of institutions at a particular hub providing very active technical support services to the spokes as well as the country in which it is based, on demand creation, and operationalising those typologies -Right ? From institutional pathways, consumer demand, value chain actors, and also exploiting the possibilities of exports within the continent and outside the continent and ultimately, consumer education on VACS opportunity crops and their benefits, on diverse farms, not only nutrition but also climate adaptation and resilience.
Coming back a little bit on the previous question, it's also about product diversification. We should not be thinking that VACS crops only (like) mung bean or amaranth will succeed. In any cropping system, it has to be part of a cropping system perspective where they play an excellent complementary role, with other crops.
So product diversification is extremely important. Without that, there will not be value chain actors that will be enthused to pick up this important crop. So, Bharat, would you like to add a little bit more to it on the market development hubs?
Bharat Bangari: Yeah, yeah. And on that actually it's not it's not related to or it's not confined to a particular commodity.
It will be more of as we said, it's more a country crop combination. So it would include a little bit of a range of commodities or a range of crops from that country based on different prices. That includes the market as well as other social parameters. Yeah.
Lawrence Haddad: Thanks - Can I ask you a quick question, Bharat and Prasanna? How - you keep mentioning country crop pathways.
I think… how unique are those country crop pathways?
Prasanna Boddupalli: There are certain unique combinations. For example, if you look at the amaranth work, amaranth work is primarily done in Kenya and Tanzania to a major extent. It doesn't mean that it cannot expand into other countries in a major way. But not many countries have so far picked up improved varieties of amaranth and gone to the markets. So there are specific country crop combinations. Similarly, Bambara groundnut is very much a force, in certain countries in southern Africa, similar is the case with pigeon pea, in Tanzania, in Malawi and in Mozambique and offering huge opportunities for export, to India.
So therefore there are country crop combinations, which could be identified based upon the existing consumer demand and other pull factors.
Lawrence Haddad: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Did you want to come in or…? Nope. No. Okay. Let's move on. Here's a question from Rachel Lambert in the Q&A. And she said, do we actually have sufficient demand analysis to know that we can re-valorize and get people excited about these crops?
Do we know what turned them away from these foods in the first place? Lynnette, do you want to have a go at that?
Lynnette Neufeld: Sure. And if it's alright with you, Lawrence, I'd like to link that a little bit to the question from Tom (in the chat), because he actually points out that not all of these crops are actually abandoned.
Some of them are consumed quite extensively, but they may be limited to certain segments of the population. They may be only available in very, very restricted geography, very restricted season because they haven't been produced on a larger scale and so forth. So I think there is absolutely a role for reevaluation. We know that for some foods, the processing time is a really important factor for, for some of these crops, complexity of processing before they can be consumed.
So you're right, a good demand generation campaign, a good behavior change campaign is going to be based on why… why are they not being used. Right.?We know some of that. We know that we need to get food conveniently. That's a huge issue. We know that seasonality and availability is still a major constraint.
So that's a big part of that connection to the other. The production side of the that. But then getting more granular in specific contexts. Yeah, we need to do that formative research in advance of understanding to, you know, some of the crops are considered inferior foods - “Oh that's what my grandma ate. That's not what I'm going to eat.”
But there comes also that need to motivate. And people bring the pride back of those traditional crops, and change that mindset. That's a part of, of the challenge in, in some contexts. And again, all of this is going to be very context specific, very crop specific. And, they'll be work to do, to get it right and, and fit to purpose and context.
Lawrence Haddad: I agree, and I think we've got to be really creative about, the demand strategies we use. And I'm sure you've heard me say this before, Lynnette - but we need to use not just left brain thinking, you know, this is obviously logical and good for, but diversity, biodiversity, resilience and health and nutrition and livelihoods. But we have to somehow, bring in aspiration, bring in emotion, and really create something that's exciting and, and different, but that the vision has to extend to consumers as well as producers.
We've got some really interesting questions coming in. A follow up question for you Lynette, do we know anything about whether there are any plans or whether in fact they exist… Do VACS type crops? Do they feature in food based dietary guidelines already? And should they?
Lynnette Neufeld: Yes, they absolutely should. And in some cases they already do.
So a lot of food based dietary guidelines won't go into the detail of which legumes - they'll say legumes, right? But here there is an opportunity to be explicit about that. And there are countries and I'm sorry that I can't pull it off the top of my head right now to give you examples. But I know from having conversations with my colleagues who lead that area of work here at FAO - absolutely, there are countries who are really making it explicit. But there's a huge still, tapped opportunity to do that more and to say not only consume legumes but consume and, and diversity of those legumes don't just consume vegetables consume a diversity of those vegetables, including some of these examples of the ones that are nutritious and, and under that umbrella of opportunity
Lawrence Haddad: And I know, I know from the Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition that, I FAO, WHO, GAIN and others are partners on that. We are looking at NAPS - national adaptation plans and, looking at food based strategy guidelines to see whether there is a potential to bring environment and nutrition health together in those instruments.
So I think, I think Ethiopia has been one of the first, in Africa to bring, sustainability concerns into their food based dietry guidelines. So I think there will be opportunities to institutionalise these
There's a really interesting question from Anna, ans Anna sort of makes the comment - She says, you know, how do we assess whether these crops contribute, how they contribute to current diets to improve their healthiness? And are there no local crops in the countries that could be considered? So it feels to me that when you talk about VACS, you are talking about local, national, indigenous crops, right? Can you just confirm that for me? Yes, like these aren't new crops.
Prasanna Boddupalli: That are absolutely right. These are indeed the local crops. And indeed they are not new to many farmers. But what is required is a new set of varieties which are climate resilient, disease resistant, pest resistant. And they are there now, but they are not being scaled to the extent they are to be. So market dynamics is very important.
And connecting the producers with the value chain actors, especially the processors and create sustainable demand, that was the critical link that was missing. So all these efforts that we are talking about are how to create better opportunities for those farmers to go back to those crops, which they have been using. They are not new to them and build a sustainable demand for those crops on their products.
Lawrence Haddad: I guess that that idea that they are not new to the farmers is a big plus, I would imagine? Because when we were trying to, work to get the biofortified crops going and these, again, crops that produce through, through conventional breeding techniques.. but they were they were they looked different sometimes or they tasted different sometimes.
And they had different properties and even then there were only five or six of them, right? And here we've got potentially hundreds of different crops. So I'm just wondering how, how are we… even with 5 or 6 crops? And yes, there were differences by country. That was a challenge. How are we going to know… is there an aggregation challenge here?
Aggregation of production, aggregation of demand. Is that an issue here? Is that something the hubs can tackle or not?
Prasanna Boddupalli: Absolutely. And that is indeed a major issue, Lawrence, as you rightly point out. And that's why we need to have links with those food processors and aggregators. And to be able to connect them to the community based, farmer based seed producers and grain producers.
That is a major aspect of demand creation. And, the only way to create that kind of demand and sustainable demand beyond any initiative is to link with value chain actors.
Lawrence Haddad: Great question here - Prasanna, thank you. A great question here from Eric Boy, who's a key driver within HarvestPlus of a lot of the nutrient and rich crops, adaptation and, and pickup work and Eric said, you know, donors, policy and implementation actors often require and expect impact evidence on a whole range of outcomes.
How do we need to balance the research and delivery to optimise impact for the target, target population level? You know what… In other words, you know, how do you build something before you've, you've demonstrated the definitive impact. How do we get the investors and the governments to take it on faith that these are going to work?
Well, at least some of these are going to work, before we have all the answers to reassure them? That's a perennial problem. But, I think it's a big one here. Who would like to pick that one up?
Lynnette Neufeld: I can start that one with a couple of reflections. So one of the things that I've been chatting with the colleagues here and, in the CIMMYT and FAO team is the importance that we now develop, monitoring framework based on that theory of change.
Right? Because this isn't a project. This isn't one little thing that a donor did and will deliver to that donor. The idea here is much bigger than that, and we would expect changes across countries and to be happening that we would see things changing across that theory of change. So, you know, there's an impetus for action here because if these are nutritious foods and they're being produced and consumed in a nutritious manner, there's no harm.
There's a minimal risk of harm, shall we say, that we should be acting on and not saying we have to have rigorous impact, you know, randomised controlled trials because there is a logic to consumption of nutritious foods as a part of a healthy diet that we can work on. But to say what VACS is contributing, we need to be really careful to pick strategic and also measurable and, and indicators across that period of change that have potential to be responsive to the kinds of investments that are coming from that.
But take it up above the level of individual investments, individual projects into something. Okay. In this collective, how do we start to see some progress across those pathways? They will drive towards that change and, and an evidence based story that can then be data and evidence based story that can go to norms with. Thanks.
Cary Fowler: And I'll just add something there. I think we have to be in this for the long haul. We have to play the long game here. This is not about quarterly results or anything like that. And I also believe that we need to understand that there are reasons why major crops are major crops. Since the dawn of modern plant breeding, which is about a hundred years back, almost all of our resources on that end of the value chain have gone into a handful of crops.
And today, billions of dollars every year go into a handful of crops. They're not opportunity crops. And that affects every single aspect of the value chain. It doesn't just affect the seed system and plant breeding, it affects it all the way to the processing industries and, out into the schools and into the supermarkets and such. So the cumulative effect of that is we've concentrated on these, these, these particular crops to the detriment of others.
Now, if that, if that were a God given system, then I would be intimidated, of course. But it's not. There are reasons why we have what we have today. And so I think what that does is it presents us with an opportunity to do something different. I was looking at one of the other questions in the Q & A from Rachel Lambert in the UK. Thanks, Rachel. Are there, you know, how do we get, how do we prioritise some of the actions we have here? And one of the things that's happened that I've experienced along the way is that, I've had a couple of agriculture ministers come to me and say, look, Cary, we are all in. Tell us what we need to be doing. We really believe in this, and we will get the policy environment aligned with what, you know, with what's happening with the VACS movement. That, to me, gives me a lot of encouragement. But there's one other thing. And as pointed out in the Q&A, and that is that we will need some ongoing efforts to look at how this aligns with, with climate.
Lynnette, you mentioned about, you know, how are we going to, how are we going to measure, impact? Well, we've got to understand that going forward, climate is going to have a huge impact. So we have to align what foods we’re producing with the climates that are emerging. And that's going to require really close collaboration with everybody on this call with the climate change community, with AgMIP, and others who have done climate modeling for us, which is going to have to be an ongoing task.
So to me, Lawrence, the, one of the most interesting things about what is what seems to be emerging, what this VACS community is bringing, people together from all the different angles, realising that we can't do this alone, that we've got to be together on this.
Lawrence Haddad: Thanks, Cary, I totally agree. And what about, one of Rachel's points is, We seem to be focusing on the here and now. You know, current country crop combinations. How much space or how much thinking, how much foresight are we really, investing in to sort of think about in 10, 15, 20 years? These are the kinds of, under these, under the conditions that will prevail in 20 or 30 years time because, you know, this is.. you’re right.This is a movement. And it's going to take a long time, I think, to bear fruit, not a long time in terms of human development and human history, but a long time in terms of donor funding cycles. So we have to be really…. we have to… it seems to me we have to, build, build in foresight and patience.
But how are we going to… how directly connected is AgMIP to this whole initiative? For example? Cary?
Cary Fowler: You know, I, I think AgMIP is essential to this because, we're getting better and better at modeling. We can now get down to pretty granular levels in our modeling for climates. And I've seen some of the interactive graphics that have been produced using AgMIP data.
That's going to get better and better. So if we can provide that type of information to governments, at the national level, local level, and even to farmers and farmers organisations, it'll give them better information about, and a better ability to plan for the future. If one of the fears, I guess, that I have late at night is we'll still be putting all of our resources into just a handful of crops and that, as those crops and cropping systems, Prasanna - encountered challenges we won't have any options, because those major crops for which we've invested billions of dollars will still be out yielding some of the crops that we've ignored over the years. And that's a really bad scenario. Now, if you can picture that, bringing in climate change data to show people that in certain places, some of our major crops, which I love, I used to be on the board of trustees of CIMMYT I and pro-maize and pro-wheat.
But if they're not going to perform in a certain area as well as we might expect or hope them to, then maybe it's time to have a plan B, but we need to be able to demonstrate that. And that's where I think organisations like, like AgMIP come in.
Lawrence Haddad: Thanks, Cary. I think it's going to be, as you said, billions are being invested in a handful of major crops.
And it's going to be so challenging to change that, so many vested interests. And so much, past dependency built in there. But it will take time and it will take, you know, a concerted effort of alliance of different types of organisations. But I believe it can be done. And as you say, it must be done really.
I've got a couple of questions - from the Q&A on the demand side, who wants to pick these up? One question is, from Mohamed Racinebarro, who should fund demand creation at the national level. Who should fund that? And you've given us five scenarios, Prasanna and Bharat, five different pathways for demand creation. Who should fund that?
And, another question is in VACS overall, this is an impossible question to answer at this stage, but it'd be good to have some discussion. What do we think the percentage of the of the overall budget or set of resources needs to go into the demand side? It's going to be very tempting, it seems to me, just to focus everything on supply and say, well, we'll worry about demand later, but we know that we can't afford that. We have to do both hand in hand. So any reflections on either of those questions, who's going to who's going to fund demand creation at the national level and what kind of set of resources, what percent of what share of resources are we talking about here?
Cary Fowler: Lawrence, you're a great moderator, but I'd like to know your opinion about that question.
Lawrence Haddad: That's not fair Cary. You’re not allowed to do that. But I will give you my opinion. But I'm happy to take answers from the floor…?
Prasanna Boddupalli: I think there is no one straightforward answer to this. Depending on the context, there can be investment from multiple sources. Ideally speaking, I would like the national governments to take responsibility for this and to invest resources.
And that's how we can build long term sustainability, to any initiative. For example, let me take my own country, India, the Prime Minister himself, and his office is actually driving the initiative on VACS crops. They don't call it VACS grub, they call it ‘Srianna’. And that means it's the ultimate form of food Srianna, and, building again demand for pearl millet, sorghum, finger millet and these crops into the food value chain.
So that, to me, is an ideal model when governments take up the initiative to sustain, and to recognise the importance of it from multiple perspectives and invest resources, that's the ideal channel. If government is not in a position to invest resources, then the other institutions should step in, including, for example, The World Bank or the African Development Bank, for instance, which provides tremendous resources to the governments to implement their vision on agriculture, and aligned with the country level vision, the third, of course, is the international funding agencies, which can provide pilot resources -
In my view, they can provide sustainable, long term financial resources to, to make this movement work for decades to come. So to me, therefore, there is no one specific channel, we must target multiple channels for greater level of resources. Secondly, I would hate to put any percentage on demand creation. We must understand that demand creation should be exclusively and intensively funded by itself.
Crop improvement in many of these crops - You'd be surprised to know that in some of these crops, the varieties that were released were even 30 years old, 40 years old. They were bred in an era when climate change was not even there, to the extent wee are talking now. So on one side, supply side, in terms of developing climate resilient and nutritionally enriched varieties, even in this opportunity crops is so important, on another hand, that movement will be completely defeated if (there is no) demand creation.
So I would, I would say at least 50-50. You should have crop improvement and seed systems and grain markets strengthening on one side and 50% on demand creation. Then only you can build at least for the next ten years. If not for the 3 to 4 year time frame
Lawrence Haddad: Prasanna, you violated your own principle of allocating a percent -
Well done for being braver.
My own answer was that it's going to be a non-trivial, significant amount that's allocated to demand creation. So I'm being very vague, but it will depend on country to country. I know, our work at GAIN is roughly, one third, one third, one third, one third on ensuring supply, one third on the policy side of one third on the demand side to on average.
But, it's got to be something like that. And I think, Lynnette, you might have a view, based on the theory of change, but it's really hard to answer this in a specific context. I do think that de-risking is really important. And then demand side work is part of the de-risking effort. They can't leave all the risks to the farmers and they can't bear all the risks.
Please produce all this stuff. And if, if, if someone picks it up, great. If they don't, too bad for you, that can't happen. So we do need to think. Think about de-risking. I think the trick on the national level, the national government side is to make, make the de-risking, part of the part of the programme.
So on the public public procurement for schools or social protection, we have to support governments to show that, it may not be as difficult as you think. It may not cost 20% more to do the same, it may cost 2% more. And if it's only 2% more and in the first two years, maybe we can find some external funding to de-risk your de-risking.
So I think it's yeah, I think it's, it's not straightforward, but it's not not to it's not difficult. We do much more complicated things and we fund much more complicated things, than VACS.
Did anyone else want to come in on the budget spending side? You know cost, but give a number that's hostage to fortune three years later?
Lynnette Neufeld: No, not going to give a number, but can I just say one thing? So we have a lot of… We do a lot of demand creation for healthier diets, right? And we do on one side of this world and on the other side of the world, there's a lot of work that goes on producing on the production side.
And I think to me, the unique value here is that we are trying to bring them together. And really… and recognise that it's not going to move forward unless they come together. So to me, it's much less important on the exact dollar amount than it is on recognition and selling to the donor that you have to invest in all of these - and bringing together the partners and saying you have to bring the expertise of all of these together, because it is a very different expertise to create demand for a farmer than it is for a consumer.
It's a different expertise to create demand generally than it is to, you know, adapt the seeds for plant breeding. And the opportunity here is to go to donors and say, bring your money together, because the potential here has been multiplied, many times over, because we're doing it under the same umbrella in a coordinated manner rather than in isolated things that we hope to see what happens later.
Lawrence Haddad: The great thing about the demand side investments is if they work, they just kick start something that then has its own momentum and supply and demand moving perfectly together. I mean, a couple of really important questions we need to wrap up soon. But these are really good questions.
Will gene editing be used in VACS? If yes, does that have the potential to undermine and, and explode the demand side work? And tw0 do we see any role for indigenous, nonscientific knowledge in promoting.. nonscientific knowledge for promoting opportunity crops? Who would like to pick that up.
Bharat Bangari: I mean, this is one of the programs that was spearheaded by the Government of India. It's called India millet mission, which started with a meager $3 million funding, in, around 2016. But now it's close to $300 million that the Government of India spends over it. And actually, that program of millet, producing millets got coupled with this indigenous knowledge program,,e.
So this is this in, in Indian languages called ‘Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana’ which means traditional agriculture development scheme. So essentially the government believes that these millets and these VACS crops, as we call them, opportunity crops, can be grown with the help of these indigenous knowledge. So I think there's a huge role and there's a huge potential for that.
Prasanna Boddupalli: So on the gene editing front,VACS - Crop improvement efforts will not be limited only to conventional breeding. We do need to rely upon genomics assisted breeding, as well as gene editing to address some critical challenges which cannot be tackled through conventional breeding. So in the future, I would say that in the near future, gene editing will also play a very important role.
It's a tool when you consider is and one and is end to where you create point mutations or minor changes in the genome to achieve the desired outcome. It's not equivalent to inserting a huge foreign sequence, and those are very much acceptable to many countries. And so to me, gene editing will happen, even in these crops to create better varieties in the future.
And we must be open to that idea. Only important thing we need to do is democratise the use of gene editing and, and create a consortium of partners so that less developed countries can also have access to the tools and technologies for improving VACS opportunity crops through gene editing.
Cary Fowler: But, Lawrence, can I jump in and just add something really quickly, on both of those points?
I think on the plant breeding front, there will need to be more and larger collections of the diversity of these crops. And that's the point in which you try to access and benefit from indigenous knowledge. And it's not just indigenous knowledge about how to grow these crops. It's indigenous knowledge about how to cook them and serve them and process them.
So I think Bharat is absolutely on target. This is going to be a critical element. And I think we can do it better this time than it was done in the past for some of the other crops. And on the gene editing front, I would say that, there's no there's no VACS czar.
There's nobody there to dictate what kind of crop breeding methods are employed. That will be determined by, I guess, the individual plant breeder or the country that it's involved in and will be subject to the regulations and, and of course, to actually, to market pressures as well. So, that's an open question, back to you.
Lawrence Haddad: Thanks. Anyone else like to come in on, we need to wrap up now. We're going to pass over to Cary, soon for some concluding comments. Does anyone have any burning points they'd like to make on the panel? Concluding point?
Bharat Bangari: No, I wanted to just talk about the evidence earlier. There was a question that… where's the evidence for VACS and the kind of work that has been done? I think one of the things that we need to also look at is the evidence from the past, because there are a lot of organisation.
And I saw a comment on the chat box also that the organisation is working on different VAC groups from the times before VACS. So that means, I mean, people were already working on these crops. So we need to look at the evidence from those organisations, those earlier works as well, to build up on the current work that we are doing.
Thank you.
Lawrence Haddad: I think we need to close this, this fantastic discussion. I'm going to turn it over to Cary, I think. Cary, we've got we've got a good consensus that we need, these crops are a potentially fantastic opportunity, but we need to build the motives, and then we need to, create the means to connect the opportunity with the with the with those motives.
I mean, if I was a skeptic on which, of course, I'm not, I'd say, why are we entrusting VACS to organisations that essentially have solidified and consolidated the status quo in terms of focusing on a small set of crops? And I think it's really important that the movement as we go forward, which is essentially all about diversity of crops, I think it's really important we have a diversity of voices, diversity of institutions, a diversity of knowledge and a diversity of types of producers.
So that's the final thought I leave you with, Cary. Diversity is important in all of these dimensions. Of course, it has to be manageable. We have to deliver. We have to move forward. We have to have an impact. But it's really tempting under all those pressures just to say, well, you know, we're just going to rely on these big beasts to deliver something.
So over to you, Cary.
Cary Fowler: Thank you. Lawrence. Let me just begin by saying that I thought the initial presentations from Lynnette and Prasanna, were, were just brilliant, frankly. And I hope, somehow those can be those can be shared. They were really insightful to me. So thank you for that. I think of VACS a little bit the way I think of my two sons. I've always loved and believed in them, but still, I'm a little bit surprised to find when they grow up that other people love and believe in them and that they're successful. So, there's VACS. I'll end on a little bit of a personal note and that is that, as you might have noticed, we had an election here in the United States, back in November.
And elections have consequences. One of those is that I will be leaving the State Department on Monday at 12:01 p.m. local time as the new administration comes in. It's been quite an incredible experience, working here. And, this session today is probably the last meeting I'm going to have as a special envoy for global food security, in the United States.
Except for the fact that I'm going to have a one on one meeting with the Secretary of State and about one hour. Why? Because he really loves VACS and wants to hear what the latest and latest news is on vacs, and that I think, in some ways gives you an idea of how far we've come in the last two years.
That he actually wants to hear about this and can talk about it himself. I think the other thing that I find, just really heartwarming and encouraging is the amount of leadership that other people yourself, Lawrence and the others on this call FAO, CGIAR and others have taken up - when we started this, when we kick this off, two years ago, we said to everybody, this is not United States owned and controlled.
We haven't patented or copyrighted VACS. It's nothing particularly new, except we're bringing together a number of ideas under one umbrella. Please join us. We're not controlling this. And so where are we today? We're here today with a couple hundred people online with some major, really wonderful organisations, backing this. And what that shows to me is that the leadership is dispersed and it has to be dispersed.
I am not the leader of this VACS movement. It's, it's a shared. It's a shared leadership. And that, I think means that even though I will step down from my position at the State Department that everything will continue. And by the way, I'm the only one stepping down. I'm the only one that's required to step down in my office.
So I have a wonderful deputy, Anna Nelson and I have other staff, Simone Passarelli. It's just amazing. And I'm sure he's on…. I know he's on this call. They will carry forth, from their positions and, in one way or another, I will find a way to help as well, just from a different perch.
So I want to thank all of you for jumping in, participating. Loving this child as much as I do. Back to you, Lawrence.
Lawrence Haddad: I thank you for that. I know we know Anna and Simone are going to power this forward. And no matter who is in the lead of this, we know that you, in one way, in many ways or another, will be part of the movement, pushing for policy change, pushing for mindset changes, pushing for, all the things that VACS is trying to achieve.
And, I just want to thank you for being an inspiration. You know, all these people that are lining up behind VACS, and are doing it because it's a great idea. And I and we had a great vision, and that vision is your vision. And you have the eloquence and the articulate-ness and authenticity to drive it forward.
And you've picked a great you've built a great team of people to carry it forward. So I just like to thank you for that. I'd like to thank all of our panelists, who I think have been outstanding. Thank you for entertaining me with the questions. Thank you for the excellent presentations. Audience, Thank you for being with us.
Sorry it was so late for some of you in Asia and, and, East Africa - really appreciate you being on the line with us. And, Cary, I'm really disappointed. Finally, my final thing. I'm disappointed. I thought that suit and tie was for us, but it's for the Secretary of State! It's okay. We'll take it. Thank you.
Everyone, have a good evening, and thank you until the next meeting. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.