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m.j. altman uncovers the hidden human stories about people and food on the frontlines of hunger in her podcast called “hacking hunger.” as editorial director at world food program usa, she also oversees the organization’s multimedia projects, op-eds and communications outreach. her previous work experience includes writer-reporter for time magazine and public affairs producer at the smithsonian institution.

altman’s podcast features interviews with aid workers and families in the field who are involved with the world food program in some way. “hacking hunger” is currently in its second season and was downloaded more than 10,000 times since starting last year.

for altman, “hacking hunger” is more than just one aspect of her role at wfp usa. she elaborated on that in a conversation with planet forward:

q: has your work with global hunger issues changed the way you perceive food?

a: one thousand times yes. it has changed the way i look at food in so many ways. a third of the food grown globally is wasted and if we didn’t waste that food we could feed most of the hungry people on the planet, which is mind boggling and it’s developed countries like the u.s. that are responsible for a lot of it.

i’m very conscientious about throwing out food. i’m that person where if it’s a half eaten sandwich, i’m asking for a to go box.

q: “hacking hunger” has been going on for some time. have you noticed an impact?

a: this upcoming episode on south sudan will be the 18th one. we’ve changed a lot. i won’t lie we dove into this not really knowing what we were doing. the podcast actually raised $25,000, which was huge for us because knowing that with that money you can feed 100,000 people really makes the project even more worthwhile.

q: in january’s episode of “hacking hunger,” you said, “i dove in headfirst without knowing exactly what i wanted hacking hunger to be.” what was your mindset in early episodes of the podcast?

a: you’re in d.c., it’s such a bubble and we didn’t want to be lending our microphones to people who already have a platform. so i found personally that the episodes i did with people that you wouldn’t have otherwise heard from like an ethiopian donor who crowdsourced facebook support for the drought relief in his homeland, those are the stories that really moved me and those are the stories that really moved our listeners.

we realized we had to go deeper. we weren’t aiming to get people like nicholas kristof on the podcast. we wanted the everyday rwandan student who was a refugee, received food from the world food program and later became an agricultural student in the u.s. that’s the story we wanted to tell. those really hidden human stories and i think that was a huge revelation for us.

q: in january’s episode you also said, “i didn’t sound like myself and it took 12 episodes before i could start to find my real voice.”

a: (laughs)

q: what did you mean by real voice?

a: if you go back and listen to the early episodes i sound different because i had an idea of how a podcast should sound. i was channeling diane rehm. so i’m talking in a very soft, just the intonation of my voice, whereas if you know me i’m a pretty loud and outspoken person.

when you’re writing a podcast script it can start to sound really stilted and dry so what i’m really hoping with this second season is that it’s a little more conversational, it sounds just a little more natural.

q: are there any other interviewers besides diane rehm that you have learned from?

a: doing a lot of the interviews over skype because we’re talking to people in juba, south sudan, and iraq is really difficult because you don’t have the face-to-face interaction. you’re not able to read someone’s expressions and get a sense of, “ok are they comfortable with this question?” i think listening to “fresh air” with terry gross has been really illuminating and just other podcasts where people act like themselves.

q: how have your previous experiences like working as a public affairs producer at the smithsonian institute influenced your work on the podcast?

a: my experience, both reporting at time and working at the smithsonian’s american museum, taught me the importance of perspectives. when i was at time i had the opportunity to put together a special anniversary package on the iraq war and for that i interviewed an aid worker, a wisconsin senator, a documentary filmmaker and a soldier. i got very different run downs of what the war had been like. it was just a reminder of how everyone has a different view of what’s happening in the world and the same was true at the smithsonian.

it was a reminder that you can’t make assumptions. we’re always learning and there are just a lot of unreported stories and unreported voices and perspectives that even though we don’t hear them doesn’t mean they don’t exist and aren’t important.

q: do you still consider yourself a journalist?

a: i don’t think i do because i have a bias right? i love the world food program. i love the mission. i feel i’ve had the opportunity to travel to tanzania and bangladesh. i’ve seen wfp’s impact and interviewed families first hand.

i have an agenda and my agenda is to hopefully share that passion with my listeners and get them to understand why this is so important, why they can join this mission, whether it’s listening to the podcast or sharing it with family or a friend, or donating $10 after an episode. i come into it with a deliberate purpose of i want to get you on my team.

q: jane pauley, the anchor of cbs news sunday morning said, “the shows i really admire like ‘oprah’ and ‘ellen’ are distinctly like their hosts. so i think my show will be successful only if we try to stay consistent to my own sense of myself.” do you see “hacking hunger” as a reflection of yourself?

a: i’m starting to. i think because of my journalism background, you’re not supposed to put yourself in the story, or at least traditionally the idea isn’t to be overly narcissistic and just see the world through the lens of your own past experiences. but i am starting to realize that there are experiences i can share with listeners that make them know me more and the importance of building that relationship.

i started the south sudan episode by telling a story about being in tanzania and meeting a 10-month-old baby who was basically starving to death. it’s an experience that changed my outlook on life so much. it haunts me to this day. it always will and it always should. so i shared that in the beginning just because i think fortunately most people are never going to have that experience of meeting a child like that who has been without food for so long that they can’t be saved. i hope that in sharing that people understand my personal investment to this particular story in south sudan.

q: you’ve elaborated on your personal investment and a lot of the significant issues behind global hunger, but has anyone ever told you to focus on what they believed were more important or pressing issues?

a: luckily, i have a really supportive group of family and friends. my husband over christmas announced to my whole family, “did you guys hear that ‘hacking hunger’ raised $25,000? oh my gosh!” it was kind of embarrassing, but here at world food program usa we get comments like, what about hunger in the u.s.? that’s one of the big pushbacks.

i understand that perspective because we do have hunger in this country, but i think it’s important to realize it’s not always a zero sum game. the extent and the scale and the severity of hunger in a place like south sudan is so much worse than we see in this country. it has implications for people in the u.s. even if they don’t realize it.

hunger feeds on violence and instability and spreads. it’s like a virus. if we have the ability to feed a hungry person, we should. if we have the capacity to save a life, we should. even beyond that there are really very serious economic development and national security consequences for ignoring a famine on the other side of the world.

q: are there any episodes of hacking hunger you wish you could change?

a: we always want to have more voices of people who are impacted by hunger and that’s really hard to do not just because of the logistics of getting a recorder to a remote village in syria, but because of the language issues and access generally.

there was an episode we did on this really incredible miracle crop called moringa. it’s coming to the u.s. and it’s helping smallholder farmers in ghana. we didn’t get a chance to talk to a farmer in ghana who has seen her family’s income triple because she started growing this really nutritious, hearty and drought-resistant crop. so there are a lot of examples from last season where i wish we could have heard first hand from the people who are growing these crops or are experiencing hunger, not just the aid workers.

q: how has the podcast influenced your perception of hunger?

a: before i started working here i didn’t have an appreciation of hunger and how much of a problem it is, but also how solvable it is. it’s a paradox. we’re growing enough food in the world to feed everybody and make sure everybody is healthy. the problem is access. people live in remote villages that don’t have roads or they’re not able to get the farming equipment and the financial capital they need to make their farms successful.

this is maybe not a “sexy” topic, but i met a wall street journal reporter named roger thurow — and maybe you’re familiar with him — but he covered agriculture for 20 years. it was market stuff and the developed world’s business side of agriculture and then he covered the famine in 2010 and ’11. he said it was a story he couldn’t walk away from. thurow quit his job at the wall street journal and now just reports on hunger full time. i think that is extraordinary.

q: what does success look like for “hacking hunger”?

a: success is literally anytime someone is moved by our podcast. if you listen to an episode and it opens your eyes to something you never thought about or it changes your perspective or just broadens your perspective, i feel like that’s a win. if you share it with family or friends, even better. if you donate after and you become a supporter of our organization or you become a supporter of any hunger nonprofit, that’s a win. but i think even just starting with if you listen, and you have something that you take away from it, then i feel it’s a success.

at a chuck and sue rice international agronomy lecture at kansas state, achim dobermann, director and chief executive at rothamsted research in harpenden, herts, united kingdom, provided his knowledge and views of what the future sustainability of agriculture might look like.

dobermann said the new 17 sustainable development goals support a framework to guide all countries in sustainable development. using intensification, producers can increase production of agricultural products on existing land while reducing the impact on the environment, dobermann said.

“society, at large, is not keeping the pace it needs with technological changes that are to come,” dobermann said. 

dobermann said people in this world are afraid of change, which makes it very difficult for them to accept those changes, especially with rapidly developing technologies used for production agriculture. 

in the sustainable development goals that dobermann talks about, he said almost half are feared by the agriculture industry.

however, he described how productivity in agriculture will be able to continue to grow in countries around the world with four certain scenarios that help with shaping global food systems.

these four scenarios include requiring productivity to be efficient, inclusive, sustainable and have nutritious and healthy products. 

“i always thought that the only way to improve production in agriculture was just by implementing the use of (genetically modified organisms) and by getting people to accept them, but as he explained intensification, i never realized that by intensifying that productivity you can increase the output without increasing farmland,” danielle comstock, sophomore in agricultural communications and journalism, said. “i really liked that he mentioned all of the countries overall agreeing on the same 17 goals and utilizing their inputs to increase productivity overall as an aspect.”

there was a wide variety of people who attended the lecture, including students from other departments outside of agronomy in the college of agriculture. 

“there are a lot of great opportunities in global agriculture,” josie reilly, junior in agricultural education, said. “it will be important that it will become more of an area of interest for agriculturalists and that we can really focus on developing countries and becoming more involved in global food systems.”

this article was published on the k-state collegian on january 24, 2017. read the original article here: http://www.kstatecollegian.com/2017/01/24/global-food-productivity-lecture-opens-minds-to-sustainable-agriculture/.

but it turns out organic, grass-fed animals actually contribute more to greenhouse gases and water usage than factory farmed ones. to meet demand, scaling up factory-farmed beef isn’t the answer, either, according to a june 2015 mother jones article. and with those disconcerting facts, consuming large amounts of meat, in general, is getting harder to reconcile.

animal agriculture comprises 18% of greenhouse gas emissions. to give a comparison, transportation exhausts make up only 13% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. that means that meat production contributes more to the destruction of our planet than all of the cars, buses and trains combined.

it also takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce just one pound of beef.

(photo by scott bauer/usda ars)

the average american consumes more than 70 pounds of meat each year, which is 10 to 12 times more than the meat intake of the average person in other countries, such as mozambique or bangladesh.  

vegetarians and vegans have made the decision to completely cut animals and their byproducts from their lives. while these diets are both accepted and understood in our culture, a lot of people don’t have the time, money, or inclination to completely eliminate meat.

is there an alternative? introducing: reducetarianism.   

what does it mean to become a reducetarian? simply reduce your meat intake. the concept is as simple as it sounds. for a variety of reasons, including environmental impact, health benefits and animal advocacy, reducetarians find the middle ground between passionate carnivore and vegetarian.

choose one day each week designated to limiting your meat consumption. many restaurants have certain meatless meals or specials; and many whole foods market locations participate in meatless mondays, where customers can fill a tray with any mix of fruit, vegetables and other vegetarian food items for $8.

 
(photo by ralph h. daily/wikimedia commons)

following this trend, consider eliminating meat from your diet on specific days of the week, or perhaps pledging to only eat meat on the weekends or when you go out for meals with friends. if meat is a large part of your diet that would be difficult to reduce to once or twice a week, another option is to consume animal meat once a day if you would usually have it with two meals, or limiting to half portions.

another way to reduce meat consumption is to substitute animal meat for other proteins such as tofu, seitan, legumes and whole grains. there are also a variety of fake meats to replace animal meat in common recipes.

(photo by andrea nguyen/creative commons)

besides the health benefits of becoming a reducetarian, which include reducing heart disease and stroke, curbing obesity, helping fight against diabetes, and limiting cancer risk, the environmental impact involves saving resources worldwide.

are you able to cut back?

(image at top by kevin walsh/creative commons)

in each average-sized nutella jar, there are about 94 hazelnuts, and every year, over $2.4 billion worth of nutella is sold. that’s a lot of hazelnuts, and now that the wholesale prices of hazelnuts are increasing by more than 60 percent, the tasty treat may become so expensive that it becomes unsustainable as a snack food.

as a college student, i have seen firsthand exactly how many different ways nutella can be used in a semi-broke student’s life. last year, i watched a boy use nutella as makeshift glue after he put it on his pretzels.

so just maybe, i thought, this nutella problem has the potential to raise awareness about climate change among the younger demographic that considers the product a staple. it can be difficult to see the bigger picture when climate change isn’t directly affecting you.

earlier in 2014, students across my college campus were horrified at the prospect that they would no longer have to say, “i know guacamole is extra,” at chipotle, not because it magically became free, but because avocado crops were being heavily affected by global warming. the prices of avocados could increase so much that chipotle warned in a securities filing that they might have to temporarily discontinue their guacamole option. a true american horror story, no?

as frightening as pricey nutella or a guac shortage may seem to a 20-year-old, it is minor compared to the daily struggle of the estimated 805 million chronically undernourished people in the world. food insecurity is a global issue that demands solutions, and it’s hard for college students to understand the severity of this epidemic until the prices put favorite treats well out of a college student’s budget.

our earth is in trouble, but i feel fortunate to be a part of the generation that will be the next leaders, policy makers and business owners. we have a chance to work toward a cleaner and healthier future. however, everyone in my generation needs to be of this same mindset to make change happen.

in january of 2014, a pew research center poll showed that climate change was “ranked second to last among 20 issues” on the public’s priority list for the government. political instability in pakistan and north korea’s nuclear program were both ranked higher than global change. don’t get me wrong, those are very important issues, but worldwide food shortages and destroyed crops are a common denominator for all countries and deserve more attention.

maybe when favorite treats start to disappear from daily life, people will start to ask questions and look for solutions. first, hazelnuts are too expensive, and then the price of sugar is raised. then, starbucks around the world begin to close because coffee had a few bad years. and then what? will we have a black market for corn?

our generation cannot afford to take climate change seriously only when something drastic and irreversible has occurred. we should be thinking now about the environmental consequences that result from our dangerous habits.

we’re not going to lose nutella entirely – there are enough hazelnuts to keep production going, but it’s going to cost us. but even if the college student diet staple does remain the same, that isn’t the point. a shortage scare of a chocolate-like spread shouldn’t be what finally makes young americans think about climate change.

clutch onto your jar for dear life, this ride is only just beginning.

^{top photo courtesy of s smith.}

that number is the amount of corn the united states is on track to produce this year in tons.  so that means for every man, woman and child in the united states, they can have 2600 pounds of corn to themselves this year.  it’s used for an incredible amount of things in this country: food for people, livestock, fuel for cars, hundreds of plant-based products, etc.

the only thing more incredible than the sheer number is the percentage of that seed which is genetically modified.  while the europe union has effectively banned gmo seed and crops, the united states has wholly embraced it.  88 percent of our crops are now genetically modified, with corn taking the lead as our principle crop.  this is up from less than 10 percent only 20 years ago.  is it a coincidence that we’ve seen an increase in food production by 120 percent in that same time frame?

now yes, there are a lot of controversies around gmo crops and seed these days.  everything from regulation to pricing concerns and health issues has kept people hesitant to embrace these engineered foods.  but with the global population skyrocketing, the increased yields of these seeds might be hard to ignore. 

is it fair to debate our concerns about gmos while people in the developing world need food desperately? is this a health discussion worth having regardless of the immediate crisis? weigh in on the debate in the comments.

gabe salkin and mel mcintire are seniors at the george washington university majoring in journalism.