Watch a video interview with Will Hueston.

The Food Network
The U of M organizes major corporations and leading universities to work with a United Nations agency, with the aim of developing leaders for the world’s food supply.

Will Hueston has developed a strong partnership with the United Nations food agency, as well as with major corporations, to create a network of experts to monitor the world’s food system challenges.

By Ann Bauer

When your spicy tuna rolls are delivered to your table, you probably don’t think about the much longer journey they made from ocean to plate. But there are experts—from government, industry, and academia—who create and sustain food systems that deliver this raw fish and seaweed around the world.

They also assure the safety, security, and environmental sustainability of food production and processing. And thanks in part to U of M efforts, this group is expanding.

“Food trade began with civilization of man; we started transporting everything from salt to wine to grain,” says Will Hueston, holder of a new endowed Chair for Global Food Systems Leadership (see sidebar). “It’s a prerequisite for economic and social stability of developing agrarian economies. And the only way to manage it efficiently and effectively is through a shared interest in feeding all people well and safely.”

A Leadership Focus
To help support an efficient, affordable, and safe global food supply, the University has partnered with Cargill, General Mills, the Rockefeller Foundation, and SSAFE (Safe Supply of Affordable Food Everywhere), which have all provided expertise and funding—along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—to launch the Global Initiative for Food Systems Leadership.

What sets the initiative apart is a commitment to leadership development, according to Hueston. “Historically the focus has been on technical training, so-called ‘knowledge transfer,’” he explains. “We now recognize the need to match that knowledge transfer with skills and attitudes that help people work across disciplines, cultures, and sectors.”

Members of the collaboration intend to share best practices: bringing together scientific thinking about food production with environmental awareness, political sensitivities, and a belief that all people deserve quality food.

“From our perspective, this is a great opportunity to engage the whole supply chain,” says Mike Robach, vice president of corporate food safety and regulatory affairs at Cargill. “We have academia, government, and the private sector all working together around the goal of having a sustainable, safe supply of food that will feed every citizen of the world.”

As part of the effort thus far, the U of M and the University of Helsinki held an international workshop on food control research. Government officials and researchers from 13 countries looked at ways to evaluate the success of food safety measures at the national or global level. A later work session at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy focused on creating a leadership model to address global public health and food system challenges across international communities and cultures.

Accelerating Best Practices
Last fall, Hueston, Robach, and Jim Butler, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations, met in Rome to discuss furthering public-private partnerships to support the food supply chain.

The conclusion: While technical training has been instrumental in creating basic operation capacity, the missing link has been leadership, not technology.

An example of one way to close the gap took place last November, when the Global Initiative for Food Systems Leadership hosted 19 senior officials from China for an intensive program on international food safety administration.

“The greatest opportunities to strengthen food safety systems come in areas that must quickly produce more food at less cost,” notes Hueston. “Right now China bears a resemblance to the United States of 100 years ago, rapidly increasing production and entering new export markets.”

Through a combination of formal presentations and experiential learning—including visits to the Port of Rotterdam, a large pork processing facility, and a General Mills bakery products plant—the delegation saw safeguards and precautionary practices at work.

This kind of leadership development can accelerate the adoption of best-in-class food system management programs across the world. According to Hueston, “The potential impact of this initiative is unfathomable, and everyone benefits: from producer and processor to teacher and candlestick maker.”

‘World as Our Breadbasket’
Hunger remains a persistent issue facing our world. “Over the last 18 months, 75 million people have been added to the total of malnourished or undernourished people in our world. It’s often referred to as the ‘bottom billion,’” says Butler, the deputy director-general of the UN food agency.

“Much of our work deals with capacity-building,” he continues. “The developing world doesn’t have professors like Will Hueston, so we help build bridges for them, linking academics with experts in the private sector.”

Currently, the world produces some three billion tons of food annually. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has estimated that filling the global caloric shortfall would require only 38 million additional tons. That is, Hueston points out, an increase of only 1.3 percent.

“It’s possible to produce enough food, sustainably, on a finite amount of land,” Hueston concludes, “if we start looking at the world as our breadbasket.”

That’s just what these leaders intend to do.

Ann Bauer is a writer in Minneapolis.

This article first appeared in the spring 2009 issue of Legacy, a magazine for U of M donors and friends produced by the U of M Foundation.