‘The canary in the coal mine of our broken food system.’ How impact investing can help eliminate hunger Episode 2
Episode Summary
SDG #2: Zero Hunger. The answer to hunger is not just more food. Mark Watson, Dan Horan and Quiana Broden help Liz and Steve explain how eliminating hunger requires a focus on the total food system. The solution comes from producing and distributing healthy food sustainably, at a cost everyone can afford, and that supports the food producers. The Fair Food Fund utilizes impact investments to back entrepreneurs who are supporting their communities with food-based businesses, such as a black-woman-owned firm bringing a plant-based diet to Detroit.
Episode Notes
In this episode you’ll hear about:
• Challenges of producing healthy food sustainably.
• Why “local” matters to food growers and consumers.
• Pandemic illustrates how “un-resilient” the world’s food systems are today.
• Mark Watson describes how Fair Food Fund supports food-based businesses and pays investors a return.
• How Cooking with Que pivoted when Covid-19 took away its revenue.
Related story: Green pastures ahead for sustainable food post Covid-19
United Nations SDG #2 Information
Guest bios:
Mark Watson is a senior strategic investment advisor for the Fair Food Network based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He supports the network’s impact investing arm, the Fair Food Fund, which provides catalytic capital and business assistance to support entrepreneurs in food-based businesses that support their communities.
Dan Horan is CEO and founder of Five Acre Farms. It aims to bring local foods to grocery stores, restaurants and food shops, supplying milk, buttermilk, cage-free eggs, and other dairy and apple-based products that are sourced and produced within 275 miles. Five Acre Farms works with farmers using sustainable practices and pays them a fair price to ensure they are sustainable, too.
Quiana “Que” Broden is the owner of Cooking with Que, where she aims to teach people how to “eat to live” by introducing them to more plant-based meals.
Global ESG Summit streams across three time zones on May 27 – exploring the driving forces of a changing world; the pressures (and pitfalls) associated with data, disclosure and stewardship, as well as the products and asset classes available for ESG and sustainable investing.
UN’s World Food Programme
Feeding America
Feed the Hunger Fund
Global FoodBanking Network
*correction: Global FoodBanking Network does not invest in hunger-relief work in California and Hawaii, as the episode mentions
President Jimmy Carter audio clip courtesy of C-Span. From 1977 commencement speech to Notre Dame.