Susan Bradley on Feed the Future: Solving Hunger Requires Cross-Cutting Development Initiatives

Summary: “Sustainable food security means that food production has to be climate smart,” says Susan Bradley in this week’s podcast. “In order to achieve climate smart food security, we are going to have to build resilience and adaptive capacity into agriculture.” Bradley, division director for the USAID’s Bureau for Food Security, is working to implement the U.S. government’s Feed the Future Initiative. Unveiled by the Obama Administration in 2009, the $3.5 billion “whole of government” initiative aims to alleviate hunger and increase food security around the world. Understanding the linkages between climate change and food security has been one of Bradley’s top priorities. “Climate change and its impacts are completely cross-cutting and will impact almost everything that we are trying to do in Feed the Future,” she says. Bradley discusses a number of key “lessons learned” through her time with Feed the Future, including her work with drought-resistant crops, flood resilience, and post-harvest storage. However, she also says that broader human development efforts are necessary to compliment agricultural interventions, describing the need for increased micro-savings and women’s empowerment programs. “Almost every social outcome has greater positive impacts when a woman is empowered to be controlling resources and influencing decisions within the household,” she says. “We therefore consider empowering women to be at the heart of facilitating household adaptation to climate change.” Bradley spoke at the Wilson Center on May 7. Friday podcasts are also available for download from iTunes.