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- In a moment, we'll talk again with the former governor of South Carolina on this program 20 years ago, in a moment.

He and his firm, won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating world hunger in 2020, An executive profile with the Honorable David Beasley, starts now.

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The Duke Endowment, a private foundation and enriching communities in the Carolina through higher education, healthcare, rural churches, and children's service (bright upbeat music) On this edition of Carolina Business Review, an executive profile featuring David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme.

(bright upbeat music) - 20 Years ago when our guest was on this program, it was a different world politically and in general, we are glad to have him back.

He is former governor of South Carolina, but also the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, we welcome the Honorable David Beasley.

Your honor, welcome and thank you so much.

- Thank you, Chris.

It's great to be with you.

- Governor in 2020, the World Food Programme as well as yourself were honored with the acknowledgement of the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing... for combating world hunger.

How did acknowledgement give you leverage or inform what is going on now and how you address the Ukraine situation?

- One of the things that I had been expressing dismay about for several years was the media's obsession, whether you loved or hated Trump, it was... 95% of the media covers shout Trump, Trump, Trump, or Brexit, Brexit, Brexit, or COVID, COVID, COVID.

And we were not getting the space to let the world know of all the hunger and poverty and destabilization was taking place.

And so when we got that phone call about the Nobel Peace Prize, it was a game changer.

It brought the attention to the world.

And I think the Nobel Peace Prize committee was doing two things.

I think it was saying, hey, number one, thank you World Food Programme for what you're doing to use food as a weapon of peace of bringing stability to nations around the world.

And number two, they were sending a message, world wake up, the worst is yet to come, therefore we want to use this Nobel Peace Prize forum and platform to really help accelerate the message that the world needed to hear.

In fact, it made a dynamic difference and as you can see today, world leaders are talking about not just Ukraine, but the impact Ukraine's gonna have on the hunger problem around the world and what it means in terms of death, starvation, destabilization and mass migration by necessity.

- Governor, you said, in regards to Ukraine in the current humanitarian crisis, if you will in that.

You said it could create a catastrophe on top of a catastrophe and beyond anything we've seen since World War II.

Is that avoidable?

- It was avoidable 'cause this man made conflict.

Anytime you have manmade conflict, it's avoidable in my opinion.

In fact, when you look at the last five years, when I took this role at the World Food Program, there were 80 million people marching towards starvation.

Not chronic hunger, that's a different discussion.

Shock hunger.

Well, that was primarily manmade conflict.

The number went from 80 to 135 right before COVID.

Well, why?

Manmade conflict coupled with some climate shocks around the world?

Then number went from 135 to 276 and that was COVID economic ripple effect around the world.

And so right before Ukraine, and I mean right before it, I was already messaging around the world.

We have a perfect storm, we have conflict, climate and COVID and we are running into significant problems around the world.

And we're going to see famine, we're going to see destabilization of nations, and we're gonna see mass migration if we don't get on top of this.

Pricing was spiking from fuel, pricing was spiking already for commodities and shipping costs were already jumping up.

Then on top of that comes Ukraine.

And Ukraine is not just about inside Ukraine, the global impact (murmurs) had because it is the bread basket of the world and it's dynamically gonna devastate countries and poor people around the world.

- How do you remediate this?

World Food Programme and yourself announced an initiative recently around this, but unpack that a little bit.

I don't want this to be too leading of a question sir, but how do you get to that directly?

- Well, there's a couple things here.

First as Ukraine itself, what do we need to do to help the Ukrainian people?

You're seeing four or 5 million people leave as refugees and they're being met on the borders by loving strangers, giving shelter, giving food, giving hope they're out of harm's way.

You actually could say they're the lucky ones.

But, inside Ukraine you still have 40 million people that you need supply chains, commercial industry to still work so people can get food.

What we at the World Food Programme are doing are coming inside.

We are already reaching a million.

We will reach two and a half million this month, 4 million next month, 6 million the next month after that depending upon the necessary resources.

Now, having said all that, what about the external impact that the Ukraine war will have?

Because they produce...

They mean in Ukraine produced about enough food to feed 400 million people.

30% of all the wheat in the world comes from Russia and Ukraine.

20% of all the maize corn comes from Russia, Ukraine.

40% of all the fertilizer base comes from Belarus and Russia.

80... About 80% of sunflower cooking oil comes from Ukraine and Russia.

And so when you pull that out of the market, you not only are gonna have a pricing problem, you're gonna have an availability of food problem.

Now let me break that down a little bit.

Because you're at the planting season right now for Ukraine for corn.

Well, guess where all the farmers are?

They're on the front lines fighting.

Well harvest season for wheat is in June, July, August.

Well, if they're still fighting, you go lose all of that magnificent volume of wheat.

We have 30 million metric tons right now of grain stuck in the Black Sea because you can't move any of the cargo because you have mines in the seas and it's a war zone.

So you start accumulating all this.

We buy... Now we feed 125 million people on any given day, week or month.

We buy 50% of our grain from Ukraine.

Now I'll be able to find other places to buy it from, but the pricing is going up, up, up, up, up.

To give you an example of the economic impact that this will have on our expense balance sheet, on a monthly basis, we are now seeing a 71 million increase in operational cost per month.

That's $850 million a year.

So that means four or five million people won't get fed this year.

So if we don't have the money, you're asking us to take food from the children in Chad to give to the children in Ukraine, or take food from the children in Ukraine and give to the children in Afghanistan.

Please don't put us in that pickle, that situation.

Now, and we can get further into the weeds of the Ukrainian dynamic and how it's affecting like Egypt.

85% of the grain comes from Ukraine, Lebanon, and that could go on and on and on.

And we are now already cutting rations for countries like Yemen.

We just cut 8 million people to 50% rations about a month ago.

Now we're looking to even scale that down more.

Chad, 50% rations.

Niger, 50% rations.

Ethiopia, 50% rations.

And so millions of millions of children and families are now getting half the food they need.

And if it continues, it will only exacerbate as availability of food becomes a problem, not just in these poor countries, but what happens when you don't have availability of food in Paris, or London or Chicago or Charlotte or wherever it may be?

So I've been meeting with the leaders around the world, particularly the G-7 agricultural secretaries saying, "we've got to prepare an offset as fast as we can for the potential of the loss of grain availability."

Now let me add one more complication.

All the big silos in the Ukraine are full.

So if they get a harvest, where are you gonna put the harvest?

And you can see we're trying to run through a lot of different issues, provide expertise and guidance to the Ukrainian government, as well as to leaders around the world.

We've gotta move these grains as fast as we can, but you can't truck out, all that amount of grain that you would ship out.

Shipping is a whole different operation, so much higher volume.

The trucking out is virtually impossible.

It's like a dropping of water into the ocean.

So we got some challenges ahead of us in addition to feeding people inside Ukraine that we can't reach like in MARPOL and places like that.

- Your honor, a couple of the biggest elements here seem, as you talked about supply chain but the other thing is, is offsetting or remediating the cost for the price increase because of the supply issue?

So where do you get the money?

How do you make up for that?

I suspect this has something to do with the new initiative.

- I mean, it's all about money.

If we can end the wars, actually we can end world hunger.

No doubt in my mind about that.

I mean, conflict, 80% of our operations are in manmade conflict areas.

And so we know how to work in these complex environments.

And this one is extremely complex as you can only imagine.

But right now my budget... My goal when I joined the World Food Programme was to put the World Food Programme outta business.

That we wouldn't be needed anymore.

We created resilience and sustainability for families instead of giving them food, we give them the opportunity to produce their own food.

That was my goal.

Well, it's just been war and conflict disaster one after another and here we are.

And we are $8 billion, at least short of what we need.

My budget last year was about, revenues were about 9.8 billion.

When I started, it was five point something billion.

So we're going in the wrong direction in spite of 200 years worth of great progress, but now we're going in the wrong direction.

Now having said that, there's $430 trillion worth of wealth on planet earth today.

And the billionaires during the height of COVID, their net worth increase was on average 5.2 billion per day.

Increase.

So I'm saying, look, just gimme a day or two of your net worth increase, and we can solve this problem in this short term perfect storm phenomenon that we have.

- Are they any reacting to it?

Do you get some feedback from them?

- I'm getting a little bit of feedback, but I'm not getting the response I need right yet.

Hopefully, the Ukraine will stimulate a few to step up in a big, big way.

'Cause it has to be in a big, big way.

- Well, so you tweeted, you followed it or you tweeted something to Elon Musk and I'm not gonna get this right, sir.

But you did reach out to him.

Is it... And not to oversimplify this but is it as easy as getting... Lemme say this, I'm sorry.

Lemme go back and say, as governor, you were a huge proponent of public private partnerships.

And this seems like there's an extension in this with you and what you're doing.

But can you get one... Let's call him billionaire.

If you get one billionaire, will some of the other dominoes fall?

- That's what I'm hoping.

I've been sort of teasing and making proposals out there, but I haven't had anyone take the bait yet.

But we are getting some attention though, quite frankly.

And as I've said, when I was United States, governor.

You improve the quality of life by creating wealth through the private sector.

So I'm all for people making money.

I think that's how you end poverty and hunger.

Charity is very important, but it will never be the long term solution for ending poverty and hunger.

It's about systems, private sector engagement and how can the United nations and government empower and inspire the private sector to do more, hire more, share that wealth more.

And in the last 200 years when you look.

200 years ago, 95% of the people were in extreme poverty.

So the systems that we've designed and built, engaging the private sector in the past 200 years is really producing, but you still got that 10% we're not reaching.

Now, do you throw the baby out in the bath water to reach that 10 to destroy the 90%?

No, you don't.

So we've built great systems, but we don't need to rest now, we still gotta reach that 10%.

And so with the private sector., a lot of people just wanna go, hey, gimme money, gimme money, gimme money.

That's not me.

I'm like look, I wanna partner with you, walk alongside you and let's end hunger together.

Quite frankly, I'd like not...

I really not interested in your money as much as your strategic engagement.

Now because we have this incredible perfect storm, I do need a little bit of short term cash.

And it's just a short term phenomenon.

But what I would love to see Elon Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos and men and women like that, to take advantage of their extraordinary intellect and end hunger and help us change systems for the better, because you (murmurs) put a man on the moon or they can put... Take a smartphone and do amazing things with it.

I would like to see them use that to end hunger and end poverty so the world's a safer and better place for everybody.

- There seems like, and I'm not telling you to call on sir.

But there seems like there's this new era of billionaire or multimillionaire out there like MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos, former wife, who took quite a bit of money and just pushed it out without restriction and surprised many philanthropies across the United States with multimillion dollar gifts.

And did it with billions of dollars.

So is there an opportunity... Do you have a plan to tap into that new style of thinking of wealthy or affluent people to have them feel exactly how you describe what's going on in Ukraine and utilize their assets and their money?

- I think that this new generation of CEOs and people of wealth are thinking differently than 50 years ago.

And I really think they have a much greater social mindset or social responsibility mindset.

And again, I think she is just a classic example of that type of mindset.

Musk had made a decision a couple months ago to put about five or 6 billion in a particular trust.

And people said, "well, that come to you."

I said, "well, it hadn't yet."

And well, yeah, but I'm like, no, look, I'm just glad to see Bezos and Musk start to engage.

If they don't do it with me, that's okay.

But do it with somebody, get out there on the field, help the poor and the needy in such a way that lifts everybody up.

And this is what I'm talking to a lot of CEOs.

And for shareholders, particularly Wall Street, in a lot of the poor countries, you just can't come in and say, I wanna quickly return on that investment.

You gotta take a longer view and be more strategic to help build the systems up.

Because if you don't build the systems up, you'll never end poverty and hunger in these developing nation.

And this is where building systems and changing the way business is done, but not coming in with a quick return on investment mindset, because that just will not work in a lot of these countries.

- Governor, anybody that has two competing schools like you do in your CV, Clemson and USC.

And we all know the rivalry and you've been able to navigate that at all these decades.

You bring that to bear with this whole idea that maybe the World Food Programme through its humanitarian efforts, through its acknowledgements and things like the Nobel Peace Prize can be the honest broker of dialogue through serving people.

What have you learned about that?

How can you be at the center of that place that helps bring together and move forward in a call it a political environment?

- I've taken advantage probably of every political relationship I've ever had in this job.

And what of the things when I was United States governor and in the House of Representatives, usually my best friends were my biggest political enemies on the floor of the house for example.

They would fight it out, but they stood up for what they bleed in.

And I've always had a...

I don't know, a knack for meeting with the enemy on the other side and sitting down and maintaining a friendship amidst of differences but here the World Food Programme, as the Nobel Peace Prize committee we use food as a weapon of peace.

Some use food as a weapon of war.

We use food to bring people together, nations together, tribes together, factions together.

And it's something about the history of food in reconciliation and fellowship with one another.

And so we maximize it.

When you feed 125 million people, you're maximizing food to bring peace, 'cause I've seen what happens when people have food versus when people don't have food.

And I've actually seen out on the field, out there in the areas of conflict where you'll have warring factions in a tribal area or a village area like in Yemen.

And we would come in and say, everybody on both sides put your guns down.

We're not feeding you until you put your guns down and come sit down and then we'll feed you.

And I've seen that happen firsthand.

And so food is a powerful weapon.

And when I go meet with presidents and prime ministers, I'm the food guy.

They know I don't have an agenda other than helping people.

And there's something about that 'cause you're not coming in there with a political agenda trying to tell them they're right or wrong.

We come in independent, impartial and neutral saying, hey, we are here to do nothing but help the people get food.

It's just that simple.

Now what can we do together?

And who can be opposed of that?

- Yeah, of course.

And you may very well know Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

I wanna read this and I'm sorry for looking off camera, but I wanna read what she said.

She said, "we may look back on 2022 as the year that broke the back of humanity systems as we know it today."

And I'd ask you, is it that dire?

- That's worse.

- Really.

- It's worse.

I had predicted that 2022, we would make a turn that 2021 was gonna be the worst year we would've ever faced.

But the world leader stepped up with us and we were able to avert famine mass destabilization and mass migration because the leaders stepped up.

We received the funds we needed.

But we thought that COVID would be behind us.

And so when COVID, didn't go behind us, it recycled.

Then late last year I predicted that 2022 would be the worst humanitarian year for crisis at least since World War II.

And quite frankly, the humanitarian structure, all the fire trucks are out.

They're out for fires.

If we have another...

If we have a massive like earthquake of volcano right now, or something like that, wow.

Another outbreak of a major war, the system is stretched to its limits.

It can't take much more.

It really can't.

- When you go through... And we have about five minutes left.

As you have these, as you talked about prime ministers and presidents, as you have these dialogues, do you feel like the win is hit your back?

Are you optimistic as you just caused it's worse than dire this year?

Do you still see light at the end of that tunnel as you move through?

And I know you're going to Ukraine again very soon, but you've been over there so much.

How do you feel about it?

Are you optimistic?

- I'm a glass as half full kind of guy.

I'm always an optimist, I really am.

And a lot of people ask this question, how do you stay positive or optimistic when you see nothing but devastation in war and death and starvation?

And I'm like, well, I see every human being as special.

Made in the image of God, we're all equal and yet we're all special.

And when I'm out there in that field, in a war or rubble village, this has been totally torn apart.

And I see a little child come from behind that rubble with a smile and a bright eyes.

It just inspires you to stay focused.

And so even amidst all the storms, 'cause I do believe that if we can end these wars, we can end hunger.

So I'm still positive, but being positive also means being realistic and responding strategically and effectively.

So I'm trying to get the major donor nations for 2022.

You can't do everything for everybody.

You'll have to be strategic.

It's like icebergs in front of the Titanic versus a broken wine glass in the bar or broken tea glass in the ballroom.

What should you focus on this year?

I say focus on the icebergs, we'll get back to the smaller matters at hand a little bit later 'cause we just don't have enough money.

So if we can be strategic, be effective, we can avoid mass famine, we can avoid destabilisation of dozens of nations, and we will truly avoid mass migration by necessity which by the way, costs a thousand times more to support someone once they've left the country versus inside the country.

- You're coming from the global stage of some sharp elbows when it comes to politics.

And I know that's not new to you, sir.

And South Carolina politics can be kind of a bare knuckle sport to some degree.

Do you find it harder given everything that you're managing now and trying to bring together parties around food security.

Is it harder to be moderate now than it was?

- I tell my Democrat and Republican friends, I'm really getting frustrated with both parties.

I said, it seems like both parties are getting more extreme.

And the average American and average party, the elected official more in the middle.

And I go a little left here and I go a little bit right there.

Anybody knows me and knows my politics.

But it seems like we're going so extreme in America.

And I'm like, look, we need to bring everybody back to the middle.

We really do because America is just full of this amazing people, but we're letting extremism and propaganda that comes from these, not so smartphone sometimes.

People are easily manipulated.

And I think...

I hear people about oh, in the United States.

I said, well, whoa, whoa, won't you come with me for a couple weeks and lemme show you people starving to death.

What happens when we don't have systems in place?

What happens when we don't have civil debate and discourse?

And I said, we've gotta get back on United States.

We've gotta get back on course to civility in the public square because I still believe in the American dream.

And I still believe that America has a lot to give to the rest of the world, but we've gotta get our house in order right now in my opinion.

- Governor, we're almost done.

Literally, on a time we have about a minute left and I wanted to say, as you talk about these things.

And I know a lot of people say talk is cheap.

But 20 years ago, I also wanna highlight the fact that you were fell on your sword to some degree politically, because you came out against... And this is not a political statement about Confederates or not.

But you were early on in the idea that maybe the Confederate flag should not fly top the dome in the State House in Columbia.

And for better or for worse, you took a stand and it ended up in some ways costing you election.

So thank you for your leadership in that, whatever the politics of it are.

I think you certainly do eat your own cooking in that way, but thank you for also spending time with us here now.

- A friend columnist in the United States after I lost election because of the Confederate flag, said, "you are the last living casualty of the Civil War."

(chuckles) I laughed and he said, "was it worth it?"

I said, "yeah, it really was."

I said, "this is not about being politically correct.

It really was the right thing to do."

I mean, the two flags that all the fly over the dome are your sovereign flags and there's appropriate place for it.

And that dialogue was heated at the time, but it really helped, I think our region of the United States move forward.

- Governor, thank you.

Be safe in your travels and thank you for your service.

- Thank you, Chris.

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