FORTY CHANCES
Finding Hope in a Hungry World
Howard G Buffett with Howard W Buffett
Simon & Schuster
Howard Graham Buffett, son of the legendary billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has poured his heart out in a lyrical expression of the spirit of American philanthropy. Forty Chances is a collection of 40 stories about hunger, poverty and violent civil wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These stories are meant to mentor and evangelise lessons in conservation agriculture for food security.
In the Foreword, Warren Buffett recognises the arbitrariness of the "ovarian lottery" in creating haves and have-nots. But inspired by the "boundless energy" of his "farmer son", the Oracle of Omaha believes that lucky ones can share their good fortune through "intelligent philanthropy". So, in 2006, when he decided to donate a substantial part of his fortune to philanthropy, his son Howard took it upon himself to address the crisis in farming and global hunger.
The leitmotif of the book revolves around age-old wisdom of "40 growing seasons" in farming. This nugget about farming life comes from a talk Howard Buffett heard one Saturday in 2001 at an event sponsored by a farm equipment store in central Illinois.
Howard Buffett memorised the words of one speaker who said, "You will get 40 chances to plant your crop, adjust to what nature throws at you, and hope for the best. It is enough time to learn to do it well. But it is not forever… What we are trying to do here is make sure we are giving you the best possible tools and best possible advice on how to use them. That way you can make the most of those 40 chances."
Armed with $3 billion from his family fortune, Howard Buffett visited more than 120 countries. His foundation has given grants worth over $200 million to agriculture-based projects in order to help poor farmers raise their incomes and feed the world. He has travelled to some of the world's most dangerous and difficult places - Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda, South Africa, Afghanistan, Armenia and Mexico - to prove his core belief that "battling hunger today is a complicated enterprise that not only involves producing and distributing food but also fighting ignorance, corruption, violence and apathy". Hunger, he concludes, is "always difficult, and it can be dangerous".
In this dangerous journey, he neither junks Jeffrey Sachs' optimism about the value of external aid nor dismisses the arguments of aid pessimists about the corrosive effects of doles on the entrepreneurial ability of the poor and hungry. Written in typically mid-western American folksy storytelling mode, the book is a heart-wrenching but gutsy tale of fighting the war on hunger and empowering poor farmers.
The story of Clay Mitchell is a classic American story of a hard-working, progressive yeoman farmer who is committed to preserving the soil and using chemicals efficiently. Kofi Boa, the hero of conservation agriculture in Ghana's Ashanti country, is a shining story of how far Mr Mitchell's farm has travelled.
Impressed by Tony Blair's pioneering Africa Governance Initiative in Africa, Howard Buffett rejects the old way of doing philanthropy, where the rich give and the poor passively receive. Improving livelihoods and shoring up infrastructure - which includes everything from roads to electricity and water management - are key to reducing food insecurity. He persuasively argues that hunger cannot be overcome without reliable, repeatable processes of good governance.
He cites the example of Joe Whinney as a case of "enlightened capitalism". Mr Whinney, CEO of an organic premium chocolate company, has revolutionised the way cocoa is sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo in an effort to popularise "social entrepreneurship" and raise the incomes of the poor. In the end, Howard Buffett presents a tapestry of richly layered narratives of some deeply committed heroes, including Shakira and Tony Blair, who put their unique talents and passions to work.
Believers in the "Occupy Wall Street" protest will, predictably, call the book neoliberal fiction to perpetuate the ravages of capitalism. Right-to-food activists will surely dismiss it as "chocolate-covered opportunities" to deny the poor their entitlements in the global regimes of food sovereignty. If you are a follower of the theories of rational choice or an admirer of the capability model, you will be disappointed.
However, the author's lack of focus on India is puzzling. Is it because India has not come up to his expectations of structural changes and land reforms? Populist politicians in India who often use welfare doles to secure votes must read this book for refreshingly alternative ideas of empowering people. Philanthropy has strong cultural roots in India, and exemplary efforts of people like Azim Premji and N R Narayana Murthy vindicate Howard Buffett's concerns about the moral hazards involved in implementing a statist policy of mandatory corporate social responsibility.
Give this book a chance even if you have not personally known hunger. Forty Chances resurrects our dwindling faith in what philosopher Peter Singer calls "the moral imperative" to save the lives of those we don't know.
The reviewer is chairperson, Centre for Public Policy, Habitat and Human Development, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
ashwanitiss@gmail.com
