The feature image of mine is from the AIF Gala in New York in May 2024. But don’t believe everything you see on the internet – The fellowship experience is quite different from the cultural triumph on display here. Read on to know why!
Examining the coffee pod from all sides, I find that it doesn’t have a hole anywhere. I peer into the fancy coffee machine one more time to figure out where to put the pod and magically get brewed coffee like the person before me did, a good 10 mins ago. The clock is ticking and I need to get back to my desk that overlooks a stunning view of 17th street where I sit and ponder over the world’s problems of food security and climate change.
I come up with the brilliant idea of ripping open the pod and emptying the powder into the space I see, pour in water and shut the lid. I wait for it to brew. Sure enough, after multiple hisses later, I have rendered the machine useless to everyone else unless I can quickly clean up the mess. Lesson learnt – if you don’t know how to do something, ask!
It’s been over 2 months since I landed in DC, to pursue my AIF-Banyan Impact fellowship at the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and it took 12,000 miles and being stripped of the comfort of my home in India for me to learn to say “I don’t know”. Celebrating its 50th year (we’re hosting a cool symposium on June 4th if you are in town!), IFDC is a unique institution undertaking cutting-edge research and strengthening markets to transform food production across Africa and Asia. As part of the business development team at IFDC, I support efforts to position IFDC as a thought leader and the right implementing partner for the world’s largest donors. I cannot thank the Fellowship enough for giving me the opportunity to immerse myself in the incredibly amazing work IFDC does.
Having worked on water conservation, philanthropy, new forms of financing for farmers and other sectors in India, I had blissfully ignored the role of what makes up the ground beneath our feet – soil. In a world where climate tech and climate investing are both chasing fancy solutions to humanity’s biggest challenge (global warming, just in case you were wondering), soil is criminally underrated. Working at IFDC has exposed me to the immense power of nature’s answer to the problems we’ve created over the last few decades. Soil houses a significant part of biodiversity, helps produce our food, captures and stores organic carbon, helps recharge our groundwater.. The list goes on. And soil, like everything else humanity has touched, is in crisis. It demands we transform our ways of producing food, without compromising on the wellbeing of farmers. This requires deep engagement with farmers, scientists, policy makers, nonprofits and companies further up the food value chain for us at IFDC.
My first project is to support IFDC’s 50th anniversary Symposium (aha callback!) consisting of the finest minds ranging from world food prize laureates and World Bank economists to entrepreneurs in the food sector from Africa. Whether it is learning to be specific about the problems we are solving while writing up proposals or engaging with highly technical aspects of chemistry, it has taught me to pay attention to detail and not sacrifice quality for the sake of speed.
This experience of thinking deeply about food at a planetary level has left an indelible mark on my own approach to food. As a fellow in a city like DC, it’s extremely easy to get lost in the options available and cut oneself slack a little too often, to engage in mindless consumption. But after understanding the process of growing, transporting, storing and getting food from around the world in a 1st world country puts things in perspective. This requires one to demonstrate a great deal of humility. My initial assumptions that smallholder farmers face the same challenges everywhere quickly dissipated when I saw the changes in soil type, crops, nature of markets and capacity of institutions vary not just across Africa and Asia but within Africa itself. The ground beneath us has a lot to teach us. If only we quieten our chatter and listen.
PS -Unlike most Fellows who have real photos of the communities they work with, I’m thousands of miles away from those I’m serving. So please excuse the self-centeredness of these photos!
