WASHINGTON, D.C. — After years of farming, Howard G. Buffett saw a deeper complexity to food scarcity than others might; not just hunger, but also an increase in government instability and violence in the areas of the world he visited.
As a farmer in Nebraska and Illinois, Buffett has been interested in conservation and the environment for years. During his travels, he starting taking photographs focused on how hunger impacts around the world.
"When you’re in a situation where you cannot eat, food is power and people are going to use that," he said. "Forget about the population in 20 years – Africans can’t feed themselves with the population they have today."
While the continent has land, it does not have much farmable area, with the required water to grow crops, he said. He has spent much of the last 15 years offering assistance in African countries because he noticed when people are hungry, they become violent in an attempt to steal the food their families need.
Those with the guns were the ones with the food. If they could not take the food with them, they would often destroy crops, keeping the common people hungry. When the violence would settle, there would be food shortages and more uprisings. It was a cycle, Buffett said during a special program at the Newseum in Washington, on Oct. 5.
His photography exhibit is called "40 Chances" because he believes between a father getting off a tractor and a child getting onto a tractor to plant crops, the farmer will have about 40 chances to get the process right. He presented 40 of his photos, taken around the world.
Some show hungry children, child soldiers and prostitutes, farmers in the field. One shows a U.S. military veteran on a front porch in West Virginia, his ribs prominent because he does not have enough to eat, with a bright, new American flag waving at the side of the image.
The images, Buffett said, show how important proper nutrition is around the world. His original interest in conservation ran into problems when he realized no one was going to try to save a tree in 20 years when they had trouble feeding their family today. To help fight global hunger, he started the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
"They’re trying to go day to day, week to week. There will be no conservation in Africa if we don’t take care of the people there now," he explained.
As different programs try to expand agriculture, Buffett warned failure to get agriculture right will mean there will not be any conservation.
"Most aid agencies work in quite a bureaucratic way. Howard’s organization is great" because the organization will try new approaches, said former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. As prime minister, he said he worked to increase aid to Africa, a process that put him in close contact with Buffett.
During the Newseum program, the two spoke about the first time they met, when Blair visited Buffett’s farm and drove his combine. Blair quipped it was the only time he has seen Buffett nervous, and he was reminded often that it was an expensive piece of equipment.
Blair said after infrastructure, food is the single largest issue in Africa. Various funding sources, including the Buffett organization, can help accelerate the path of development and help people get jobs, build infrastructure and develop farming techniques that will work in coming years.
Buffett said farming in Africa is quite different than farming in the United States, and no one can go there expecting the exact same practices to work. Buffett said smaller farms may be the best solution in Africa. Monocropping systems, like those found in Western cultures, will not work.
"It’s not an environment we can relate to or understand," he said. "It’s really frustrating because it’s something that the United States (an advisory group) … could make a difference in the Eastern Congo."
Conservationist Emmanuel de Merode, chief warden of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also works with Buffett and Blair. He said more than 1 million people live within a one-day walk of the boundaries of his park and 90 percent of those live in poverty.
He thinks one of the solutions to the poverty and hunger issues is to provide jobs. Providing electricity has been proven to create jobs, and de Merode is working to bring electricity to the people in his region.
Buffett said nothing is straightforward where he visited. Armed militia would burn crops and take the children as they passed through areas. Now, he is seeing an increase in crops such as sweet potatoes – they’re underground so they cannot burn, and militia will not take the time to pull them out of the ground.
He said African militia members know if they put land mines around a village and let the right people know the villagers cannot get out, there will be an air drop of supplies. Buffett said everyone knows about 30 percent of the supplies will be taken by the militia – but to not drop anything at all means the people in the village will starve.
"There’s nothing you can do that you know for sure will work," he said. "People are clever. They are going to outsmart you … You do what you can to help as many people as you can."
