Royal Innovative: ‘COP28 was almost a food summit’
“Extreme weather is seen as the biggest risk globally." Boris Volfman, Founder of Royal Innovative said: “World leaders agreed for the first time at COP28 to ‘move away’ from oil and gas. This is very important for a healthier, more prosperous and sustainable world.”
It’s the time of year where 1 500 global leaders across academia, business, government, the international community and civil society tell their predictions on the main global risks the world is facing.
World Economic Forum’s The Global Risks Report 2024 has recently been announced. Some 66% of the world leaders see the biggest risk in extreme weather, whereas 18% point to “disrupted supply chains for food” among the top 10 risks.
“Seven million people lost their lives because of Covid-19. Some experts tell that the next pandemic may be far worse and might happen sooner than we think. A food supply chain which is not disrupted and reliable is essential for a pandemic-free future,” said Boris Volfman, Founder of Royal Innovative.
“Destruction opens door to significant gains against climate change”
In 2023, climate change featured prominently on the world’s agenda. Humanity has just lived through the hottest 12-month period in at least 125 thousand years. Many disasters occurred due to this. In 2023, the United States alone experienced 28 separate weather or climate disasters that each resulted in at least $1 billion in damages.
Expressing that this serious destruction opens the door to significant gains against climate change, Volfman said: “Within the scope of COP28 held in Dubai in December, world leaders agreed for the first time to ‘move away’ from oil and gas. This is very important for a healthier, more prosperous and sustainable world. I can also say that COP28 in Dubai in December was almost a food summit. In other words, it was a climate summit focused on the impact and dependency of our food systems on nature… This is one of the factors that is on the horizon and will give us hope. We can move towards a next-gen agricultural model that meets the global demand for food and related products. We also need more cooperation of parties for this model to be successful.”
“We have to feed the world’s growing population”
The World Bank indicates that agriculture is one of the world’s biggest industries, employing 26% of the workforce worldwide. The same data is 3% for the Eurozone, where as 19% in MENA and 52% in Sub-Saharan Africa. The global average of agricultural land based on 193 countries is 38%, whereas 39% in the Eurozone, and 46% in Africa.
“We are damaging agricultural lands, they are becoming unusable for various reasons such as climate change, war, migration etc,” said Boris Volfman.
“However, we need more agricultural land as we need to get more of what we have to feed the world’s growing population. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020. UN estimates that it will reach 9.8 billion by mid-2050,” he added.
“We mediate the delivery of agricultural products”
Noting that we cannot grow all agricultural products everywhere. “We must produce the appropriate ones in the right geographies and deliver them to all corners of the world in accordance with the regional needs,” Boris Volfman said.
“We as Royal Innovative act as a bridge between the farmers and the world. We mediate the delivery of agricultural products grown in many countries. We are at the service of producers seeking new markets and the world citizens for their agricultural needs. We support them with our scope of services such as locating farmers, quality control, product selection, price negotiation, packaging and logistics. Our mission is to make opportunities available to our clients in the safest, fastest and most cost-effective way possible.”
