GLOBAL shifts in incomes and populations, geopolitics and climate change are combining to drastically alter the outlook for the world’s food supply.
Taimur Hyat, chief operating officer at PGIM, joined the What Goes Up podcast to talk about his research paper Food for Thought: Investment Opportunities Across a Changing Food System.
Here are some highlights of the conversation, which have been condensed and edited for clarity.
What made you look into food as a topic to research?
There were two reasons why we went into this. First, food is not just 10 per cent of GDP, but (also) 40 per cent of the labour force, so a lot of people work in this industry. We are defining food as from farm to fork and everything in between – processing, packaging, preparing the seeds, all the way to end-retail. It’s a big part of the labour force, and there’s been a lot of focus on labour and inflation. So that was one driver.
The second reason is we think food is where the energy sector and this whole talk about the energy transition was about 10 years ago. We are 10 years behind in the thinking. And it’s going to catch up, because the current food system is simply not fit for purpose. It’s not going to work for our planet, and it’s not going to work for our consumption needs, for a variety of reasons.
That debate on how we transition this – even if it takes 20, 30 years – to the new food system of the future has happened. There are carbon-transition funds, there’s renewable energy, there are opportunities, there’s the Inflation Reduction Act, and lots of money going there. It hasn’t happened to food yet, but we think it’s about to.
** Click here to read the full-text **
