There are a lot of global crises Africa’s facing currently, from political instabilities to climate change to food insecurity, an issue that needs to be addressed. Food scarcity is not a new problem for Africa, a continent well acquainted with the devastating effects of famine due to poverty and droughts. For the West and Europe, the probability of food scarcity beckons as it ties into the adverse effects of climate change. The Earth is transforming rapidly and in the wrong direction, which is a problem that the Ethiopian-born Sara Menker is dead on curbing.
Born in Ethiopia in the ’80s, Sara Menker, who was privileged to grow up more well-off than most, was not naïve to her surroundings. Her mother was a seamstress for Ethiopian Airlines, and her father worked for the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She saw the people in her country starve, which would then be the catalyst for the kind of work she does now. “There was a famine and poverty and all of those things. It was a very different time than it is now, but I feel like it shaped a lot of who I am today.” she shared in an interview with the New York Times.
Menker attended an excellent private school in the capital city, Addis Ababa, and moved to the United States, where she studied Economics and African Studies at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts. She furthered her studies at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, earning her Masters of Business Administration.
After her tenure at Morgan Stanley (a Wall Street multinational investment and financial services company), where she was the commodities group Vice President, her interest in food insecurity grew. As a result, she began investigating how Africa could alleviate the world’s increasing demand for food which led to the inception of Gro Intelligence in 2014.
Gro Intelligence is a data-driven tool that connects food markets worldwide and uses artificial intelligence to forecast agricultural trends. The company also offers software that makes agricultural, weather, and climate data easy to comprehend. In addition, Gro Intelligence has been used to investigate the impact of natural disasters on food supply. It has raised more than $125 Million in funding and has offices in New York, Singapore, and Kenya and customers such as HSBC, Tyson Foods, and the U.S Chamber of Commerce, to name but a few.
People often blame the looming global food crisis on the excess of human beings on Earth, arguing that the planet can’t sustain billions of people. When Menker was asked whether she believed this to be accurate, she maintained that it was not. “We can sustain it.” she declared. “There’s two places where you get growth from. One is through yields: grow more on the same amount of land. Second is to expand the area, which is not what we want right now, because most of that expansion of area is basically deforestation.” So it’s a catch 22 situation where economic growth results in a lack of ecological preservation.
Menker’s success has led her to be appointed as the Mandela Institute for Development Studies trustee and elected as one of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.
In conclusion, what Menker is doing to curb the likelihood of a global food crisis is so important. According to her estimates, by 2030, food shortages could be as significant as the financial crisis, and the world could face a 214 trillion calorie deficit. These predictions are worrisome and alarming. Global climate change is real, and it is happening rapidly. Menker is an inspiration to young people who are taking up ecological preservation and leaving a better planet for all.
