One of the last panels of the World Food Prize Borlaug Dialogue on Friday was on the importance of food productivity to meet tomorrow’s demand and much of the focus was on increasing animal protein in the world diet.

Moderated by Margaret Zeigler, Executive Director of the Global Harvest Initiative, the panel included Elanco President Jeff Simmons, who we already heard from, as well as Chicago Council on Global Affairs Senior Fellow Robert Thompson, American Council for Fitness and Education CEO Susan Finn and Honduran farmer and professor Isidro Ochoa.

Thompson talked about why trade barriers need to be addressed in addition to increasing food productivity, Finn discussed the importance of protein in the diet, and Ochoa related his experiences in Honduras in increasing productivity, especially for dairy farmers. “We came together with best management practices, better health practices and feeding programs,” said Ochoa, noting that dairy producers are now delivering 8,000-12,000 liters of milk where it averaged about 50 liters just 14 years ago.

Listen to presentations by three panelists here: Panel on Increasing Productivity

Thompson, who is also currently on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University as a visiting scholar, really stressed the importance of opening up trade. “We need to reduce barriers to international agricultural trade so that those countries that have no hope of feeding themselves are able to take advantage of free movement of product through the international markets,” he said, noting that is most important for countries in south and east Asia.

Listen to my interview with Thompson here: Interview with Bob Thompson

Susan Finn says addressing hunger globally includes good nutrition for the most vulnerable times in life, in the womb and from the ages of 1-5. “It’s more than calories,” she noted. “It’s the quality of those calories,” and that means protein.

“Nutritionists talk about nutrient density and that means a lot of nutrients in a relatively small amount of food,” she said, adding that the egg that Jeff Simmons talked about on the panel is a perfect example of a nutrient dense food that contains nine essential amino acids, iron, zinc and more. “I think egg is probably the most perfect protein source.”

During an interview with Susan, I also asked her what she thought about the new school lunch guidelines – find out what she said here: Interview with Susan Finn

View the World Food Prize Photo Album here.

The only other World Food Prize symposium I have attended was in 2008 and I was very impressed this year with how much the event has grown in just four years.

Ambassador Ken Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, was thrilled with the program and attendance this year. “We’re again at about 1400-1500 people, and that doesn’t count the 600 who came for our hunger summit, so all week we’ve got well over 2000 people,” he said. Those attendees came from at least 70 countries around the world. They also had about 300 high school students and teachers attend.

Security was very tight at this year’s event, and not just because the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Princess of Dubai were present. It was because of some wackos who decided to “Occupy the World Food Prize” to protest “corporate exploitation of our food systems.” Quinn says they stepped up security to ensure safety for all. “It’s right that people can protest and tell their view, that’s what our country is all about,” said Quinn. “But not to the extent that people are disrupting and perhaps making it feel unsafe for our visitors.” Fortunately, the protestors were very small in numbers, but sadly, they did generate a lot of publicity.

The last day of the symposium had a focus on animal protein, which Quinn says is becoming critically important in feeding the world. “More and more people in the world are going to be wanting to eat meat and have animal protein,” said Quinn. “The nexus of food and health coming together. As Hippocrates said, let food be your medicine.”

Listen to my interview with Ambassador Quinn: Ambassador Ken Quinn interview

View the World Food Prize Photo Album here.

General Mills CEO Kendall Powell says his company and his employees are very simply “hungry to help” people in Africa by increasing their food supply.

“We’re hungry to help the entrepreneur in Tanzania who is trying to package her products and access new markets,” Powell said during an address at the World Food Prize symposium on Thursday. “We’re hungry to help the food scientist in Zambia searching for solutions to retain food flavor and optimize nutrients. And we’re hungry to help the farmer in Malawi who, by selling her crop, will generate the money needed to support her family and pay for her children to go to school.”

Powell said General Mills is uniquely qualified to help Africa in a number of areas, such as food processing, but he believes all food companies will eventually be in Africa. “Africa’s economy grew 5.7% in the last decade and is expected to grow 5.5% this year,” he said. “The African continent is ripe with opportunity.” But, he says they are there today because they can help African processors, farmers and communities now.

Partners in Food Solutions (PFS) is a nonprofit organization that links the technical and business expertise of volunteer employees from General Mills, Cargill and Royal DSM to small and medium-sized mills and food processors in the developing world. Powell announced an expansion of that effort through a renewed public-private partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Listen to Powell’s comments here: General Mills CEO Kendall Powell

View the World Food Prize Photo Album here.

Less people in the world are going hungry but less is still too many.

The 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI) released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) at the World Food Prize symposium on Thursday shows that hunger on a global scale remains “serious” and 20 countries have levels of hunger that are “alarming” or “extremely alarming.”

The good news is that the 2012 world GHI is down 26 percent from the 1990 world GHI, from a score of 19.8 to 14.7.

Presenting the report during a breakfast on Thursday, IFPRI Deputy Director Claudia Ringler said they found that those countries facing high levels of hunger also face scarcity of natural resources, limited access to clean water and sanitation and modern forms of energy, and insecure land rights. “While the picture is somewhat grim in the report, the importance is to focus on the solutions and what we can do to reduce hunger and malnutrition levels, and there’s a lot we can do,” she said.

Listen to my interview with Claudia here: Claudia Ringler, IFPRI

View the World Food Prize Photo Album here.

The moderator and one of the participants on the opening panel at the World Food Prize symposium Borlaug Dialogues have authored books aimed at increasing awareness of world hunger and how we can feed a growing population.

Sir Gordon Conway’s book “One Billion Hungry – Can We Feed the World?” basically is the long version of his simple answer “Yes.”

“But there’s lots of ‘buts,’” Conway clarifies. “Very simply it says that the routes forward to food security are through appropriate innovation, markets that connect small holders, through people – particularly the half billion small holders in the world, and finally through political leadership.”

Sir Gordon notes that animal protein is important for healthy young people, “but the bigger question is to what extent can we produce enough grain to feed the massive growth in livestock production?”

Listen my interview with Sir Gordon here: Sir Gordon Conway interview

Roger Thurow is Senior Fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former Wall Street Journal reporter who dedicated his life to raising awareness of world hunger after doing a series of stories on famine in Africa in 2003. “What I saw there basically changed my career, changed my life,” he said. “Instead of moving from story to story, place to place and country to country, this is the story I really need to cover. So, now I write books about it.”

Thurow has written several books on the topic of hunger, his latest being “The Last Hunger Season” which details a year in an African farm community. The Hunger Season refers to the time between when food from a previous harvest runs out and the next harvest begins. It is actually being made into a documentary and you can find out more about it on TheLastHungerSeason.com.

Roger made a great comment when I asked him about the role of GMO crops in places like Africa, noting that is important for those countries to be able to make up their own minds on the issue. “There’s a great African saying that ‘when elephants fight, the grass gets trampled’ … the elephants are the U.S. and Europe and the grass is Africa.”

Listen my interview with Roger here: Roger Thurow interview

View the World Food Prize Photo Album here.