Welcome to the One CA podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1C A is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military diplomats, development officers and field agents to talk about working the last three feet of Foreign Relations.
Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working on Ground with partner nations and their people to contact the show, e-mail us at c.a.podcasting@gmail.com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassos.org. I'll have both of those in the show notes. China has a longstanding tradition in where their ruling class is always held accountable. And it's one of the few reasons that justifies the population to revolt and impose and really
buy. This is the second in a two-part series on agriculture and national security. Captain Gustavo Ferrera talks about China's food stocks in peacetime and forecast supplies in conflict. Ferrera is an agricultural economist for the 353 civil Affairs command, FXSP. And also for. The US Department of Agriculture. He and his 38G agriculture team research consult globally on
food, stocks and stability. Additionally, Ferrara discusses the 38G program and now it brings in specialists to help civil affairs consult agency leaders and partner nations. So stay tuned. So the the ruling class is always very sensitive. There is a cultural tradition that the ruling class must always ensure, at the very minimum food security. Right. And even today, that reflects a lot in the policy and narrative of the current ruling class. In China, it's.
If they have history with accepting that the population will rise up, it's not like North Korea where you can starve your population and build a nuclear program and accept that they will behave properly. Correct. Yeah. They're extremely sensitive to that. Plus it's still pretty fresh and in some segments of population, population, memory, the Great Famine. Declined to kill 10s of millions of people in the 50s. Well, they still have living memory. Right, right.
So they. Have grandparents and great grandparents are like you don't know what it was like to starve on water. Yeah, and they have those eating habits. They still reflect those struggle times. So anyway, that is just a recent event that guarantees so those events do not happen again. It was all based on bad policies, Sure, plain and simple. It was all ill advised
government acts. And with dire consequence today the population has adopted more western lifestyles to include more protein rich, dairy rich diets. They consume luxury goods such as imported European wines. So more than ever now the population has achieved A threshold of the security that it will be hard to imagine then going back to. To a rice. Yeah. And we type of diet. So it's going forward I think that this.
Sensitivity. It's only getting more preeminent than than before because like they did it comfortable, they enjoy a much better, more balanced eye. So do you think that as they consider operations or decided to blockade Taiwan or if they decided to go into Myanmar, this is a real consideration for them is how much they can ensure they feed their military as they are Expeditionary? Not only the military, it's just in general the the overall population, right? Well, and that's what happens,
right? If you go Expeditionary, you've got to feed that army and that Air Force military and that comes out of your surplus that would go into the population. Correct. China has some significant national stock reserves of key agricultural commodities. Just go on. So it be in wheat and rice, right? And how much is on those? How many? Millions of metric tons are in those stock. Stock like it's a state secret nobody knows. And all US and analyze for
commercial purpose. They always try to assess and try to estimate what were the volumes of those stocks because that determines trade, export, imports. Sure, they can always release those stocks when needed, right? But there's even speculation that some of those stocks are. Tunnels underground, under the mountains, and again, a lot of secrecy, right? But to maintain those stocks, especially in commodities such as corn and soybeans, they're
not self-sufficient. China must import very, very large volumes of those. Products, right? And those imports come strictly for a handful of countries, to include the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Ukraine, and Russia now, right? You were talking about soybean as being a critical crop that they rely on for food stock for their animals. Correct. So as as food production became more industrialized and diet habits evolve in China, now China is the world's largest
pork consumer. So China adopted this industrialized massive pork production. They're vertical farms. Some of them are 10 stories high. They contain. Thousands and 10s of thousands of animals like you said, that requires a lot of feed, and soybeans is always considered to be one of the best alternatives. Does it create problems with the animals if they're constantly eating the same diet?
Not necessarily their balanced diets, I mean their rations, they're being used, even United States are used constantly. But the problem is that it puts a lot of pressure on domestic agriculture is incapable support that growth. And therefore they do have to import food. It is an interesting image in my head of A10 story pig farm. A pig high rise basically right? Or a condo for pigs so they don't get out of their trough. They don't.
And in fact, they dealt with a major African swine fever that decimated their big farms, right? And it forced them to call 10s of thousands of animals. It was it was a massive outbreak. Again, it causes food security concerns and where all of a sudden the price of pork meat, which is just skyrocketing, they handle they they getting better in terms of phytosanitary
measures. They're getting much more sophisticated and realize the risks right, but but it keeps bringing back the same thing with their dairy They're increasing dairy production, but again, it goes back to the same problem. China is constrained in terms of farmland and water resources. So even though there is political backing for more food self-reliance, they still do not have the natural endowments you. Mean like healthy soil, water. Correct, correct. They just don't.
It's between contamination, organization, lack of even farm labor. I mean it's been this for decades. It's been massive migration towards the coastal parts of the country, farming, families moving to the city looking for better economic opportunity. Right. In your paper, you had some projections about if China went on a wartime footing and they were disconnected from the global economy. I think it was what, two years before they go into a crisis
conserving type of mode, right? Right, that's that's the common wisdom that it states that those reserves will probably sustain China for two years. However obviously things have. Shifted and Russia probably could now become a backdoor type of supplier and where he could probably redirect some of those needed grains through mainland rather because all the trade, all this massive trade that happens between China and and in the US and Argentina and Brazil happens mostly by sea, right.
Thousands of Panamax vehicles loaded with bulk commodities that unload into Chinese ports every day. Well, if that trade gets disrupted for whatever reason, you got those national strategic reserves by sometimes in Chinese, but it's unknown how long two years is. It's a mark that people have in the industry. Right. Then you have potentially Russia try to apply some of those things. Staples that you can see. And there's no alternative.
Russia care supply some wheat. But China's stuck, right? It's by trade, by necessity is stuck with South America and United States, right? Let's say. You know, there's a grantation between China and the US only. But China maintains good trade relationships with Brazil and Argentina, right? Because of the the geographic location of those farms, there's a the cycle, right, a farming cycle in another another atmosphere and the southern
atmosphere. So what happened US and Brazilian, they split the year in two. Basically there's a exporting soybean season and corn season for the US which starts in September and goes all the way to February roughly and all the sudden. Brazil and Argentina take over because that's their time for harvest. Until the late summer, they take
over the export market. So China would not have the ability to just flip because there's this seasonality component that keeps that dependency going across different atmospheres. The Global Commerce Center connectivity creates the dependency. And it's just a lack of, I mean, there's no other countries that
can produce that much, right? Not only quantity but the quality because there's there's always the quality like Argentina typically produces a lower quality soybean with less protein but but they they're good at producing meal So there's all this technical considerations that makes very difficult for China to try to outsource alternative there's there's no such alternative I. Don't mean to change the topic, but you garnered this from your work at both.
US AG and from civil affairs. If a soldier or a diplomat or an aid worker or field operative working with a partner nation, how do they plug in AG to build estimates of stability or development and growth? Because people do go out to these partner nations and do estimates work with the partner nation on their on their systems. So the USDA, and this is going back to a major event that happened during the the height of the Cold War.
The Soviet Union that time had a major series of crop failures. Before this, there was no monitoring, no tracking, proper tracking, how much grains and and agricultural products were being produced, trade and consume around the world. There was not a. A proper assessment and monitoring of those flows, right. So there is no understanding of like which country were missing or which country were had a deficit, which one of the surplus and where those surplus were moving around.
So what happens, because there was nobody assessing this and with with severe implications in a possible famine. So what happens? They end up through the back door channels buying all the weeds they could get their hands on from the US. And before they realized in the US actually was running low on their own stocks of wheat and how did they end up selling it to our Cold War main opponent.
So there was a source of consternation and less sense of humiliation that we end up selling such a key resource to our enemy. So, So from that point on, the USA create this, this group called the WASI and it's a report is World agriculture and Supply Demand Estimation and it's a report that's published every month. Which I'm part of it in my USDA capacity as an agriculture economist. It's a large body of profession
all over the world. And the USUSDA employees, some they are embedded in embassies after shares, and some are experts here in Konas. Every month they monitor production, supply, demand, stock levels for every country for every major commodity. Which is a good predictor of stability. It is, it is. And you can identify what countries are struggling. Would you expect trade to move from what place to what place?
So now we are much better position to identify what the true situation is in the global bank market. Which also helps with forecasting future risk. Correct. Exactly. Like with Ukraine, you know, the Ukraine war, there's. Obviously there had to be major adjustments to those estimation because you know, all of a sudden there was a major disruption in the key AG region of the world. So all those estimates had to be readjusted and figure out how the other countries will react to it.
You know how things get redirected from one market to the next. But again, in the case of China, right, there's a lot of energy and effort that goes into figure out how much China will import. From the United States and other countries because it is the leading customer of those key
commodities. So it's truly is all eyes on China, right, which again from a commerce perspective and even for national security perspective, it's good that we tracking that, It's good that we have a finger on the pulse to understand what kind of policies did they implemented. Where they're strong, where they're weak, where where
there's needs. If there's a strong demand from China, I mean it comes down to basic economics, right, That will mean large volumes exported to China, high commodity prices for US farmers, which increase the overall financial health of
our farming community. And and we have seen this in the last 2-3 years, you know, with between COVID and and the war in Ukraine. Global food prices have reached historical highs recognized and while this has been extremely problematic for net importing countries. I saw a lot of news of concern in the Middle East and North Africa as like Egypt, because they use so much of that. We. Correct.
So there was really an immediate concern about it, but for the net exporting countries like the Brazil, the Argentina, the US and probably why? That was was good news. I mean in fact we like you know the profit margins, the farmers were you know really healthy in 2022. So, right. So it depends on what side of the the store you're looking at for places like China and they end up paying a higher price for for those imports.
Your USDA and you're you're an agricultural economist, so you're part of a team of 38G agriculturalists. Who? Often go out and consult globally on these very issues. Our job is to provide insider expertise or any agricultural issues that may impact, you know, either national security or even in terms of nation rebuilding or reconstruction. Get a stable food production right? Correct. Restore the food supply chains back to some sense of normality.
Try to improve the markets. Reinstate the previous markets that were in place. So that's typically our role is that is just provide the expertise to the commanding officers they look it says once kinetic operations start to seize and we start shifting towards reconstruction and stability and governance, how can we restore all those key governance functions. So we are the subject matter expert when it comes to agriculture and food and food security. Right.
So if when Ukraine finally completes this conflict? And they need reconstruction. They need to pull in folks like you, both in the suit aspect as well as in the uniform, to make forecast, to do assessments on ground of what's already destroyed, what can be repaired, and then funnel those reconstruction dollars towards rebuilding Ukraine to be a vibrant food producing country again. Great. And that's the way the timeline that follows you know, obviously.
That mission is is to be shared with multiple government agencies, State Department, USID which you know the well trained well equipped for that mission. But the 38 gulfs and the the Civil Affairs and the US Army Reserve, they typically tend to be the leading party in this when the instability situation is not good enough for those civilian agency. Should be doing their work. Plus, you're supplemental.
I mean, they have great people, but it's nice to have a few extras to come in and help with the paperwork on all the site visits and their. Help in this you can assist them with the expertise and some of the connections we already have established with the local leaders and national government agencies so we can start those conversation and once all these apparatus move in with, we can help to facilitate that
transition. And help make those connections so those agencies are set up for success, so. Right. Matter of fact, you had a paper that went to the Moldova embassy and was read widely about Moldova agriculture. You've gotten papers in South America, Africa, Asia, same thing where you've done research projects and putting together white papers to kind of just expose some of the conditions and either add. Way to needs. Or reinforce good supply lines and things like that, right? Yeah.
And we try to foresee potential either opportunities or think that might be problematic. We try to identify some factors or events secured lead to intersect between full security agriculture and national security. Right. And in the case of this Moldova research that we did, we tried to draw lessons for what we observed in Ukraine. You know, right. A key major. Agriculture exporter who saw his production in trade severely disrupted by the conflict.
Right There's still a lot of agriculture going on, no doubt still exporting thanks to the Black Sea grain initiative which is up for renewal this month. It's still under negotiations, so to be seen if this is to happen, the similar situation is to happen to another nearby countries such as Moldova. Are we going to see some similar patterns events or is going to be a very different picture. For instance the agriculture in Moldova, it's it's quite different, right?
It's it's much more focused on fruits, more high value products. Yeah compared to the just bulk grains like Ukraine like. Yeah, I don't want to over focus on Moldova, right. These are the kind of products that you have sent out and have reached embassies, right? And you've gone to embassies and consulted on these things,
right? Once we finish our research and we do disseminate this to to what we think will be the key stakeholders and and primary consumers of this information, which embassies will be obviously because they're the equipment they have AG attaches, they got military attaches, right and and obviously the State Department's mission often, you know, overlaps with some of our work. Yeah, we, we shared our work with the European command user wrap. We always try to identify.
Who will benefit the most from learning this information? And probably civil affairs teams that are out in the. Field as well. Say you by the way, you know. Consider this when you're also dealing with. These thanks for bringing that up. So we had developed what we call it's a basic country agricultural assessment tool which trains a civil affairs team. They may go on a mission and it can be both in continental Europe or can be a rural part of
Africa, doesn't matter. But that assessment goes over a battery of questions that we think that any CA officer should be very aware of nuances and those factors that could really shape the environment in that region. And I give you an example, right. So if you think about farming in any Western country, you know you have a well developed banking system upfront provides the money to the farmers to buy the seeds and fertilizers. And then once they harvest, they repay back.
In parts of rural developing nation, you might have a village where one family is the one that provides who supplies that function, right, is the one that all the farmers go to get their money. So as a civil affair officers in that area, you should know that that's a key stakeholder that holds a lot of power, a lot of gravitas in that region because all farmers had to rely on his funding every year.
But again, we lay out all these key questions that we think we're gonna shed light on issues that probably otherwise will be overlooked. So we want you to make sure that you know the key players and want to make sure you don't make mistakes or actions that might be counterproductive from the agriculture point of view. Do you have links to that? Paper online. We produce that internally.
What we do is once we identified CA teams are about to deploy, we link up with their team leader and we go over product and we discuss and give you the examples. All right. Once that introduction is done, we act as a reach back capability. So we had some of those civil fair team reaching back to us. Look, I have some question about this now I know you guys are the Ed guys. But we stumble across this particular issue. What's your thoughts on this?
OK, so when people reach out to this show? I'm going to be emailing you. Well, because that's the key thing is you know that the civil affairs study you go provides that rich back capability just like you know we have obviously we just add guys, but there's a functional specialist with a great deal of expertise and the other thing that makes our service very specific, very unique in the Army is our.
Civilian professional network. Oftentimes I don't have the direct answers right to some of those specific questions, but I do know within the USDA or an academic who are the experts and I've done that multiple times where I would just just grab a phone or send an e-mail. In case in point, for for Ukraine, UCOM have really specific questions about Ukraine. I would develop this partnership with a colleagues at USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.
Who are happened to be the experts on Ukraine. And you were able to cut through the bureaucracy and get right to the right person so they can get the answer. Well, I got two options. I can try to get these answers. It might take me two days. Or I can just ask this person and within within 4 hours this information was back to Stuttgart. Did you just, like, pull out a hat and reach into it and say here's your answer?
Yeah, but it was a beautiful process in the sense that we connected the need with a source of knowledge really efficiently. He made it to the the right person at the right time. And those USDA officials, they routinely send me updates if they see there's something they may merit airing. With the econ user wrap, they do it. And I always, you know, I filter, I go through it and make
that decision. And if it is, I'll send it because often times they have access to sources on the ground that even the US military doesn't have. They actually understand the problem, I mean. But yeah, like it's it's being a very fruitful relationship. That's fantastic and that that really calls to them. Have a good network, yeah, and a good reach back. Because you never know. What crazy question. You're going to get on the ground and suddenly have to find
the right person. And yeah, it's fantastic you're able to reach out to the exact right person. Yeah, absolutely. And academics too. I mean, we have some partnership with some strong ag program and they understand the military there might be. Some initial concerns that what was the nature of this question but we have developed key partnerships and where they understand the mission we had to kind of do a little bit education right had to introduce ourselves to.
Get through the mansplaining right. Well, it's just like saying we not your typical military you know like say you know I was an academic myself you know in you know you know I'm an Ag economist by trending. So it's that kind of breaks a lot of that initial reluctancies. OK, so now you now you speaking my language. And I think that that's a strength because and the same thing goes for the some of my colleagues, they have years of industry experience.
Right. So they can reach right into the commercial sector. And pull the doors of the makers that they understand, you know, the minutiae of what it takes to rebuild a dam, right. And you might have this, you know, work experience in an engineering structure, engineering company, right. So you understand those those key issues. That your typical civil affairs officer may you know, may not be familiar.
With right and I've found often with commercial contacts is that when you can't get access to a country or an issue and the academic and the and the former military or governmental process doesn't work, that commercial sector person usually has access and make at least get you an introduction get you in to talk to someone. So it's it's yeah it's critical to have that triad of people. Or resource networks in order to get things done. Right, I agree.
But do you have any other last thought? Anything you want to pitch vacation at Disneyland? I don't know about that, it's, but honestly, I think one thing that this recent conflict Ukraine has highlighted it's the issue of global food security front and center. Again, DoD is not paying close attention to this issue because I mean if you start thinking about pandemics. Global warming, military kinetic conflict, all those are not throwing shock waves into the global supply chain.
But I'm also would like to caution because this happened before in the 2010, 2012 crisis for different reasons. But we experienced a similar spiking in global food prices, which in turn trigger the air spraying and another sources of political stability just because of the high food price back then. The military was really interest, but once the supply demand took care of that in the years later. That obvious way, there's no problems. Right, right.
There's other priorities. So hoping that what's seen now will become part of the recurrent priority, not just a temporary crisis. Right. But it can also be a really good part of the response to the Global Fragility Act, the Congress. Right, correct. Right. That passed. You're right. We've seen the right policy that we the narratives there, There's a. An acknowledgement this, this issue is a really problem, right.
And yeah and the supply chains and all this vulnerabilities that were exposed during the COVID and that's that's all happening. It's just for the national security perspective. I think it's imperative that the DoD continues to put resources and eyes on this and incorporate this food security consideration into their planning operations, right. It is going to be a key driver to a lot of the. Events, they're going to shape out the environment that ails, right.
So it's it's it's good for the for us as agriculture office to give the heads up, yes, to the planners. Look, you might not be looking at this, but this is going to be a major driver of political instability in this region and you need to take that into account. They add weather in there now they might, you know, food security and stability would be a A+ as well. I agree. Alright, well I think that's it, unless you have anything else. Now that that. That will do it. Okay well.
Appreciate your time, man. Thanks again for listening to the One CA Podcast. Our show is a production of the Civil Affairs Association. If you are interested in coming on the show or guest hosting an episode, e-mail us at c.a.podcasting@gmail.com. I'll have that e-mail and the Civil Affairs Association website in the show notes.
And to all our folks in diplomacy, development, defense and operations working on ground to build those relationships with partner nations and their people, thank you. For all you do. This is your host, Jack Gaines. Until next time, have a great week.