Good evening and welcome to episode 345 of the Private Property Podcasts. I'm your host, Uzaman Dongwa Kumalo. It's a Tuesday edition of the Private Property Podcasts. And of course, if you're on a sport the first time, you are tuned in to the only daily property show in South Africa that helps you in all your property needs. And it doesn't matter where you are on your property journey, whether you're looking to buy, to sell, to build or you're renting, this is your one-stop shop on all things relating to property. And to all our regular viewers at home, from the top fan gang members on Facebook and Instagram as well as on YouTube, welcome back. You know how we do it every single weekday. You and I have an appointment at 7pm. We're always in conversation with the property expert who helps us make better property decisions. And talking about making better property decisions, as you know, we also have a host of other great shows every weekdays at 8pm that you can tune in to. As it is a Tuesday, you can catch a warning farmer on the farming podcast and she comes to your screens on Thursdays as well at the same time. And every Mondays and Fridays, Chad brings us the home shopper show where he takes us through exquisite properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. And Estie Clarsen brings us the first time home buyers show every single Wednesday. She's always in conversation with people who've not only walked that first time home buying journey, but have gone on to grow their property portfolios from strength to strength. Those are some of the great shows that you can look forward to every single weekday at 8pm right here on private properties social media pages. I can already see some of the love that we're getting on our Facebook page. Do keep it coming. Michelle Beaumarans is watching. I also saw Nelda Everton who's also watching. Of course, Michelle Beaumarans, Howard Mogadaxani, Gleid Sherinda, Messi, Nipipindi, Mahathesh Shingani saying we've made the right choice tuning into the private property podcast. And you certainly have done that. And of course, one of the other things that you can look forward to on our Facebook page is entering the competition that we are running, where you can stand a chance of walking away with 500 grand cash every single evening right here on the private property podcast. And all you have to do to stand a chance of walking away with that cash is to comment rather on the post that we have pinned on our Facebook page as we set on the bold goal of reaching 20,000 comments. And of course, if we call your name, you have to be watching us live in order to claim your prize. This evening, we've got 1,500 grand in the money bag. So halfway through the show, we'll see who is going to walk away with that cash prize. Well, that's some of what you can look forward to this evening. And I do hope that if you entered that you're going to be watching and of course be able to walk away with that cash prize. But this evening, we're looking at one of those topics that I absolutely, absolutely love. We're looking at 10 questions to ask your real estate agent. I think many of us sometimes don't know what we should be asking, especially when it comes to our home ownership journey. We know we should be asking something, right? But we're not quite clear. What are some of the questions we need to come on with when we are working with an estate agent and that's part of what we're going to be looking at. I want to find out from you at home, what have been some really great questions that you've been able to ask estate agents that you worked with in the past that you found very useful and that helped you make a better choice when it comes to the property or properties that you were looking with that estate agent. Do share with us those questions down here below and help us get a better sense of what we should be asking our estate agents. I'm joined this evening by Annette Evans, who is a general manager at the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa, ISA. Annette, good evening and thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you, Zama. Thank you very much for inviting me this evening. It's a privilege. Thank you. I think, Annette, before we even kickstart the questions we should be asking our estate agent, first to seek us through what ISA is and the work that it does. Yes, we have actually started in 1937. I haven't been here for all of those years, obviously. And our main role is to assist and support and guide estate agents, property practitioners, as we're going to be calling them very soon. And we are a non-profit organization and we are membership driven. So our members come to us for any assistance and, as I said, support or guidance that they may need. And we are very much involved in upskilling them and also just representing them on the different platforms with stakeholders, such as the estate agent base board, which is the regulator. And they are essentially fall under the Department of Human Settlements. So we are very much the hub. We work with everybody and we are as neutral as we can possibly be, because the main thing is for us to be there and to have the connections with everybody that we need. We don't generally advise the public, but if somebody phones me and asks a question, I can guide them and direct them to the organization that will assist them best. And I think that's actually just such a great resource to be able to tap into. Because sometimes we don't quite know which direction to go when it comes to having some of our questions answered or queries addressed. And I think being able to, at the very least, get a sense of this is a direction you should be going with. These are the right people that you ought to be having a conversation with. Certainly something that is very useful. And I think then, you know, we should probably get into the first question we should be asking the estate agent that we're working with. Because I think so many of us at home, as I would say, we tend to not know what to ask. I think we know we're supposed to ask something. But more often than not, we're not exactly clear on, okay, what exactly is this thing that I should be asking? I think the number one thing, as you mentioned, is that the estate agent you're dealing with needs to have a Fidelity Fund certificate. And that means that they should check that they are registered on the estate agency, a Facebook website, and make sure that they are registered. And also, we encourage them to check that they belong to the Institute of Estate Agents.  And that means that they are, they're also searchable. So we encourage everybody to check our website, which is iec.org.za. And also, the estate agency of Facebook, that the actual agent has a Fidelity Fund certificate. And that is critical because they pay that fund, that fund covers a client for fraud. If there's any fraud, then that Fidelity Fund covers that client to claim for a fraud case, for that example. And I was actually about to ask you a follow-up that you've answered quite well around the importance of that Fidelity Fund.  We know that sometimes, unfortunately, there are a few rotten apples. It doesn't mean that the whole agency is necessarily like that. And so you want to make sure that you're working with somebody where in the event where you unfortunately deal with one of the rotten apples, you're going to be able to essentially have cover because you know that you're working with people who are effectively credible. And then, what would then be the second thing? So we've now covered our basis. We know that they're registered estate agent, that they've got Fidelity Fund certificate. What do we then have to still ask for a estate agent? So I think the next thing, if you're a seller, would be if you were selling your house, you would want to ask and discuss what your house is worth. So maybe that's too preemptive at the moment. But essentially, they would give you a market analysis, a comparative market analysis and compare sales in the area. And they would give you a good breakdown of what they do. And that's pretty much my next question. What is this going to cost me? What fees? Firstly, the fees. And then also what mandates section? Break it down to what is happening? What are the trends? What can you expect? And make sure it's full disclosure that you have everything you are fully aware of what it's going to cost you upfront. And I think when we're dealing with an estate agent, because I've dealt with numerous new or isn't able to give you a really good estimate where it comes to, we'll say, the value of your property, what can we do? Because I think sometimes, especially as when we're dealing with estate agents, from often a lot of sellers, it's your first time selling, not many people deal with the sale side, when it comes to property, we sometimes get accustomed to the buying side, but certainly slightly less on the sale side. And when you're, we'll say, interviewing that estate agent, you're not getting a good sense of, okay, this is the value and these are the different data sets that they use to get to it. How can we almost best vet that they are giving us credible information? And in the event where they're not particularly coming up with great insight, what can, what's our alternative? Well, I think that's a good question because there's a couple of angles to that. Firstly, the estate agents are not giving you evaluation on your property. So that's actually quite a critical point, I was having that conversation earlier, where evaluate, evaluate values of property, but in the estate agent will, as you said, have that information to hand. And I think it's a good question. And the question I would be asking is, so tell me about the recent sales that you've made in my area, because that is that pertains one to the value. And secondly, to the actual fact that they're experiencing your area, where their local area expertise stands. So that's quite important. And you may want to get a couple of agents in and ask them all that appear, you know, that and feel where you, where you can sort of, where you, who I should say you're more comfortable dealing with. And it is actually, it's actually gone so nicely to one of the questions our viewers are asking, of course, taking your questions and comments this evening, as we look at 10 questions to ask your real estate agent. And I want to find out from your home, what kind of questions have you previously asked estate agents that you have dealt with, that you found very helpful and useful in your own home ownership journey. We have Umar Getsi Matsu also on Instagram saying, can I ask about the value increase in the neighborhood of my prospective property? And this could also, of course, even be for now the buyer, right? Because you're potentially looking at buying this property. Is that a question that they can ask the estate agent around the general trend in terms of value in that particular neighborhood? That's a really good question. Because when an estate agent does what we call a comparative market analysis, there's three angles to it. The first angle is what has sold and transferred in the Deeds office, which would have been quite some time ago. And what is actually is on the market, because if there's 300 properties in your street, then clearly your property is going to be one of many. And the other one is what is actually recently sold. So and the trend there lies there. So they would actually be able to speak to the agent and look at that. They would a good agent would want to sit with you and go through those things. If they want to throw a one sheet of paper at you through the letter box and they don't really want to have a conversation, then it means to me that they're not passionate about property. And in my world, people are actually passionate about property. So they're more than happy to speak to you about it. And if you are selling a three bedroom house and you want to be looking at three bedroom house comparables, or you discuss the comparables, you know, there are always anomalies. But in general, if you're selling a three bedroom house or a two bedroom flat, you want to look at comparables and why do they differ? Because we've always had this joke that sometimes across the road, it's got a different value, different neighborhood, different area, different perceived value. So you need to go through all of those and speak to someone who you feel understand it. And that's such an important one. I am this evening in conversation with Annette Evans, who's a general manager at the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa. We're looking at 10 questions to ask your real estate agent. I want us to go for a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to go through more of those questions. We're going to see who the lucky winner of that 1500 rounds that is in the money bag is this evening. I hope you're watching and will of course be able to claim their prize. So let's see who the winner is. And this evening's winner is Unkiza Makati. That is Unkiza Makati is the lucky winner that is potentially going to be walking away with that 1500 rounds. I hope that they are watching us live and of course will be able to claim their prize. So Unkiza Makati, if you are watching, do make sure that you drop us a message down here below and of course claim that 1500 rounds that is in the money bag. And this evening I am talking to Annette Evans. We're looking at questions to ask your estate agent. And of course I'm asking you at home, what have been some of the questions that you've asked your estate agent that have really helped you make better property decisions. And this could be whether you're looking to buy a property or when you were looking to sell. And some of the questions and that the views at home that you're sharing with us, we've got Haudenosaunee saying one of the questions that is asked is what's the average price per square meter in the area and the estate. And that's a really great question. And I find that that's also a particularly great question for coming from investors. So property investors always want to, you want to get the lowest amount per square meter as possible. So really getting a good sense of the property that you have versus other properties and the cost per square meter is so important. Another one here coming through from Lindy Cichabela saying that is the reason why potential sellers need to look out for professional estate agents who are registered with the EAAB. And that's to what Annette was saying earlier that you really want to be working with people who are adequately accredited and because you don't want to find yourself, you know, having any issues along the way. So that is one of those important ones. We've got Uubongi Siwe Duma saying here my aunt's agent was supposed to sell my aunt's house only to find he was renting it out. Wish I knew all these questions a year ago. I mean, I'm even interested to find out how that that even happened. Right. I mean, how how that even happens. I mean, I have so many questions just based on that comment because this is not this is not that thing that could easily happen. And I guess one of the ways it could potentially happen is your aunt is in a different part of, you know, town. So they're not necessarily living there. And you've given this estate agent a mandate. And they then listed up for rental and they are pocketing the money while, you know, the property is not selling unfortunately. And so if sometimes let's say it takes even up to eight months for that property to get a seller who they're like signs on for that for eight months, they've been renting it out and pocketing that money. And I guess it would be very difficult for your aunt to have known if she's, you know, out of town and doesn't live, you know, in that particular town, because of course they wouldn't have access to the place. But I would have so many questions. I mean, utility, you know, how are utilities being paid unless everything is just prepaid. But, you know, I need to go back to the questions. What are some of the other questions that we need to be asking our estate agents? Yeah, I think that the biggest thing is to also ensure that you can get the best price for your property. Sit with the estate agent and say, okay, this is, you know, it's a Tuesday evening, you're welcome to my home, you've come around, walk around the house and ask it and discuss, is there any way I can improve the value of my home? Because I know, for example, we all kind of know that you get in different countries all over the world, they do what's called home staging. But they do it for a reason, because they almost take away all your personal stuff, all your clutter, they neutralize it, they put in, you know, up-to-date furniture and they say, okay, here's the property. So maybe they get people to vacate their property before they're actually putting it on the market. But in reality, if it's just you and me and we're going to live in there until we've actually sold the property, then the best thing to do is neutralize your property, come in from the street and see how neutral you can make it and how appealing you can make it. They call it the curb appeal. And the other thing is then if you plan to spend any money, then you look at kitchens and bathrooms, for example. And there's a lot you can do, you know, for example, if every room in the house is a different color, what often somebody will say was just painted or white and think about it like, you're going to walk in here and you want a blank canvas for somebody. And that may cost you a few thousand round, but it may get you a few 10,000s of rounds. And a good estate agent would be able to advise you of that. We've got a great question here coming from Usbunis on Facebook asking, how can the agent assist if I bought a house and later the siblings are fighting and harassing me as a buyer in the property? I know we get this quite a lot sometimes in properties in the township where you've bought the property and you bought it from the rightful owner. So suppose the owner was the parent or even the grandparent. So you've rightfully bought it from the rightful owner and yet still getting harassed by siblings who perhaps still weren't claimed to the property for some reason. Is there anything an estate agent would be able to help with in that regard or should they be looking at other avenues to best resolve this for them? I think that it would be difficult necessarily for an estate agent to step in and help, but what they could do is obtain all the legal documentation that was drawn up and maybe advise on arbitration. So what I would suggest, where the agent could possibly help, is get hold of the transferring attorney, call a meeting with a local community, somebody who could arbitrate and then if it's in a community scheme, then the C-SOS is there and they're very helpful and the community just repeat to it, it is it's a community scheme on bid service. So for any of your listeners, if they're living in a scheme and there's any issues whatsoever, there is part of the levy goes towards the community C-SOS we call it and any dispute can be taken to them. So that's one way and then the arbitration and get all the documentation together to show that they haven't and you know they have lawfully transferred that property and then address any issues and see where they can perhaps address them.  So definitely do look into you know the best ways that you can resolve that for yourself. And then Annette, what would be then the next set of questions that we need to explore asking our estate agent? Yes, I think the issue of the mandate is a big issue. When I say issue, I don't mean a negative issue, it's a big fact. So you have what's called a sole mandate and there is where one agency is responsible for marketing and selling that property. Everything essentially and how to explain it in a summary is that everything has to then go through that one agent for that particular amount of time. You get a dual mandate where two agencies would perhaps get involved and then you get what's called an open mandate. So I think it's really important that people understand what they're signing. If they're not sure, it's a good time to ask. Don't sign first and ask later. That's always, I get a lot of queries from people and they say but I've signed this, now I need to understand what does it mean. Or then I say it's too late, you've signed it and you need to understand and when those properties are being marketed, then it has to be followed through on that particular. So that's important that they ask. Please explain the mandate to me and negotiate the fees and basically those points at that time. And that's actually an important, I think, principle to adopt. The don't sign and ask later. First ask and I think it goes beyond just the mandate. I think anything that requires you to sign, whether it's property related, you're looking to buy, you're looking to sell, you're looking to rent or you're a tenant, do not sign then ask later. First rather ask, be very clear about everything from the get go then only do you sign because you don't want to get yourself in a situation where you're signing things that you absolutely do not understand. And then what would be the next question we absolutely have to ask on state agents when it comes to our home ownership training? How long do you think it's going to take to sell the property? Realistically. So you can make plans and then you can understand and the big thing is we call it price counseling. So we always joke and you say you could sell your house for a million more but it's going to take time to get to that price. Well, not in this market, right? I think not so much in this market. I think the perks from the buyer side about this market is that they're spot for choice and they're able to drive down costs to a certain degree. So I think this is an interesting market that we're finding ourselves in and I think it's great for buyers who are serious about buying and it's also great for sellers who are realistic about what their property will sell for because we have serious buyers who are willing to sign on the dotted line and buy that property. Absolutely. And on that exact point you've just made, another very important question is when you've signed, you've signed. If people make the mistake of saying, well, on Monday I bought one property, on Wednesday I bought another property and they both offers got accepted. You've entered into a binding contract. So don't do it likely because you can't just make offers and then hope that one of them gets accepted. You've got to make sure that you know that they could both be accepted. So that's really, really important. We've got a question coming through here on our Facebook page, coming from Ulindisi Chabela asking if you could just do a quick explainer what the exclusive sole mandate is. When you're talking about, you know, mandates, whether it's an open mandate, sole mandate. So if you could just explain an exclusive sole mandate, what do you mean by that? Yes. Obviously, everybody's got slightly different wording. So they would need to, they would need to make sure that they fully understand. But if it's sole and exclusive, it means that only that particular agency would be able to market the property. So in other words, and this is why it's quite important is if you, when you sign that it has a time frame. So it must be realistic. You can't give five years sole mandate and then not do anything on the property. The whole point of having a sole mandate is that they are going to be actively selling and do their absolute best to sell your property.  So it means if they put sole mandate that if they have property on their books, any other agency has to bring that person through their books. So it means that and sometimes it's a wonderful tool because they will spend, they will go all out to put your property on the market and splash it everywhere. And it can be sold quite quickly because they are spending the money and the time and the effort and energy into getting their property as much exposure as possible rather than it being diluted between a few agencies. So you've got to think what, you know, talk to the agents and see what they recommend, talk to a couple and see what they recommend. We've got a comment here coming through from Uttar Pramukh Bhoody on Facebook saying one advice I have though for estate agents and sellers is please take professional pictures and tidy your house. A disordered house on the website is already a turn off to buyers and that is such a big, big, big one because sometimes sometimes the pictures are professional and they look amazing but the house is just so untidy, you know, the bed is unmade and you'd even think, did you not know that this is the day where your estate agent is coming in to take pictures so at the very least tidy up the place. I always make sure that, you know, my helper comes through and cleans the place if for example it's still furnished in the event where it's vacant, everything must be clean and of course tidy so that all the pictures give you a really great representation of what it looks like because that clutter does distract the person who's viewing our property on privateproperty.co.za so you do want to make sure that you get that as right as possible.  And it I think as we close off the last sort of two questions that you have for us that we should be asking our estate agent. I think it's about affordability, checking what the process of finances are, if you're renting it's the same thing, you need to be able to afford what you're getting and ask them upfront what costs are going to be incurred, that's really important. And then also for example the conditions, once the conditions have been fulfilled you need to understand how long is the process of transfer so that you understand when you need the finances and ask them to explain every little cost to you. And that's actually just such an important one because I think that the transfer process I recently found in the properties dealt with this one and I think I was quite fortunate because the estate agent and even the attorneys were on the ball in explaining what the delays were and you know how long I think one of the the buyers that was interested in one of my properties they had a flisk subsidy and so they're explaining that typically when you know it's a flisk buyer these are the additional I think it was an additional two weeks or three weeks that it would add on to the you know the general cycle and so we can budget up until this amount and at every step I was quite clear of okay this is this is the delay this is how long it's going to be and you know by the time the matter came up for prep and it registered I was not shocked so I think it's so important to just expectation manage you know people at home because we don't do this on a day-to-day basis so we also want to make sure that we are kept abreast and and don't end up getting too anxious because it's not like buying a car where it's it's picking easy you know in a day you can already have that car change of ownership so it's a completely different ball game and it's before I let you go any final tip for our views at home when it comes to your dealing or working with an estate agent I think that yeah understanding when your rights and responsibilities and asking them to explain your rights and responsibilities so for example if you have a bond you need to cancel it you need to give three months bond cancellation so a good letting them refer you to a good convincing attorney they obviously have it could recommend a few and then the seller themselves makes that decision but the buyer themselves will then be liable for most of the costs so it'll be nice to get a referral on both sides the seller always chooses the should always choose the convincing attorney and they need to cancel the bond and the buyer will be dealing with that convincing attorney and they need to understand the costs up front so they all will be liaising with the transferring attorney that's that's quite critical I feel well Annette we're going to leave it there this evening thank you so much for joining us on the show thank you and thank you for hosting it it's been an awesome evening thank you Zama and that is Annette Evans who is the general manager at the Institute of Estate Agents of South Africa bringing an end to this evening's edition of the private property podcast with myself Usaman Tomah Kumalo looks like we have another roe over unfortunately Omkiza Makati did not claim that 1500 rand so tomorrow we're going to have 2000 rands in the money bag I hope whoever his name gets pulled out of the hat is watching us live and will be claiming that price well that's it for myself and the rest of the team of course catch Umbalino with the form and podcast at 8 p.m. I'll be back on your screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. until then hoping you're staying home and staying safe


Hello everyone, welcome to this Meet the Pioneers of Nutrition and Food Science session. It is part of the Sustainability Pioneers series that showcases entrepreneurs and innovators tackling today's major challenges to achieve sustainable development goals. One of these many challenges centres around our food system and food security. This topic could not be more timely, not least because today marks the start of the UN Food Systems Summit, only the sixth to be ever held and the first to have its agenda shaped directly by an officially appointed scientific group. Obesity, malnutrition and antibiotic resistance as a result of intensive farming are all threats to the health of economies and societies in the years to come. How can the latest insights from biology, agriculture and nutrition science be turned into practical approaches to protect people's lives and to ensure their health and well-being? I am Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, a weekly science journal and I am particularly excited to be moderating this session as Nature has been proud to support, vet and disseminate so much of the original research into the food system. With me to discuss these burning issues, I have Dr. Lamice Jomar who is a tenured associate professor at the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Other affiliations include the North Carolina Central University and Pennsylvania State University in the U.S. Her work centers around the interlinkages between food security, migration and health and her main interests include the assessment of food and nutrition security status of vulnerable population groups. Welcome Lamice. We also have here Dr. Jennifer Rongholm who is assistant professor at McGill University in Canada and her interests are primarily in understanding the role of the microbiome in determining susceptibility of individuals, both humans and agricultural animals to infection. Welcome Jennifer. Before we start the conversation as part of this session I wanted to engage with you who are listening to us here with a question, a question to which we will return at the end. I would like you to, so you will see a link in the chat which I think has just been posted there. You will see a link to a question which is which of the following would persuade you most effectively to change your diet? Is it ability to hold, to hold biodiversity loss, reducing your carbon footprint? Is it reducing antimicrobial resistance or animal welfare or indeed improving your own health? So I can see you are voting already, I'll give you one second to make your vote. Animal welfare is leading, oh there are some changes. So what seems to be emerging most strongly at the moment is reducing the carbon footprint and animal welfare and although improving your own health is coming in as well I was just going to make a comment that we have very altruistic audience with us but that's of course very important. So this is great. If I can ask you to remember how you voted in response to that question because we will come back to this question at the end of our session. So let me now throw an opening question to both of you. Our food system is broken is a statement of fact that we hear from science and political leaders and a key problem is indeed intensive food production practice. Are we thinking creatively enough about how to reimagine food production? What is your bold idea or initiative that you believe we should be embracing? If I can turn to Lamise first. Sure, thank you Magdalena for the introduction and thank you for starting with this very important question. The statement that you've said cannot come any true, especially post the COVID-19 pandemic and what the world has been undergoing. But I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned even before the pandemic and afterwards we're trying to understand why is our food system broken. If I were to just present briefly and in one statement globally the world is not on track on meeting and achieving unfortunately any of the nutrition indicators that we have set for ourselves. That includes all malnutrition indicators that we discussed be it from the under nutrition and hunger, food insecurity, micronutrient deficiencies and overweight and obesity. And that is where we say this is where the food system has been heavily focused for years on feeding people and as important as that is and as important as the development that we've seen in that in that perspective what we should be thinking about is of course to nourishing of the human body and to ensure that we can do that sustainably. And today with the initiation of the Yen Food Summit and all the preparation meetings before the discussion is how can we transform our food systems. They are our room for change. It is a very complex system and it does interact actually with other systems. It interacts with the health system, it interacts with the agri food and with so many other systems that we have to take into play and there are ways to intervene at many levels and there are trade-offs to be made and I'm happy to discuss further what kind of innovative ideas are out there being tested in multiple contexts because we cannot assume that the world has to have the same answers or solutions across the board. They are context-specific solutions be it for higher income countries or lower to middle income countries and definitely there's no one-size-fits-all and I think today in the summit at the World Economic Forum and at the UN Food Summit and Food Systems Summit the conversation is along. People's voice must be heard and there are ways to get about this. It's a challenge that we are all addressing and we should do it now. We cannot wait any longer. Thank you for this very important number of strong themes emerging and of course you alluded to the fact that the Food Systems Summit has a subtitle of people's summit as well and the fact that we cannot wait any longer but you also pointed out of course that no one-size solution would fit all problems in all contexts and then also importantly the fact that there is that interlinkage of a number of systems and solving or offering solutions to the food system has to be done in a context. Thank you for this and we look forward to coming back to some specific examples that you promised us but Jennifer what about your ideas of where should we be looking to re-imagining food system for production better? Yeah it's a great question. So I'm primarily an infectious disease person and how infectious disease interacts with our food systems and there are some bigger cracks in this system that are getting bigger every year and we know how to fix a lot of them but they're complicated problems that deserve that need massive change to fix them if we're going to go with the ways we know about change is very difficult. It requires economic political will and we don't always have that. So one example that I'm going to bring up is the Salinas Valley in North America. We produce a lot of our food there. We produce a lot of our beef and our lettuce there. The beef is beside the lettuce and this is leading to massive outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli throughout North America. We could move the beef or we could move the lettuce but both of these are very complicated politically and economically. So my idea is can we separate the disease transmission from the beef to the lettuce and be creative in that way through modifying the microbiome of these environments and solve the problem other than these big complicated solutions. But it is something that's affecting all of us and that we do have to move on. Really, really interesting and the potential solution of what you draw attention to this link between food production the way food production is done an infection. It's a link which is not often talked about is often underappreciated. So I think that's very important that you point this out. And I'm sure we will be talking more about the microbiome because I know that's lies at the core of your research. But before we move further could you briefly remind us what we what do you mean what we mean by the microbiome. Sure. So there's a community of microbes, bacteria, viruses, parasites that live in and on us and our bodies on our skins. This community also exists in animals in their bodies on their skin in their mammary glands. And these microbial communities are very important for our health and for the health of agricultural animals and for the health of environments for that matter. That's great. Thank you. And of course, indeed, it's good to remember that we are never alone in this context of a microbiome. And of course, as you just alluded at the end of your explanation, but of course, there is environmental microbiome as well, which very much feeds into the topic that we're discussing the food production as well. So I wanted us to spend a little bit of time talking about malnutrition. But before we do so, I want to engage the audience one more time. And so if we can turn to the slider again, you'll have the link to the question in the chat. This time, very simple. What is one word that comes to your mind when you think about malnutrition? Just one word if you can type that into the some really interesting responses, greed, waste, very interesting children, starvation. Yeah. So waste is emerging as a as a dominant theme, very interesting. Thank you. Very interesting. And of course, my reason for engaging with this is that I now want to turn to our panellists and talk about what do we mean about malnutrition? And in the same context, when we talk about combating the issue of malnutrition, of course, we talk about healthy and sustainable diet. Both of you alluded to this already. And the fact that one size is unlikely to fit all. Can I ask you to comment on this? How should we think about malnutrition? And then what is the best path towards sustainable and healthy diet? Lamise, can I turn to you first? Sure. As the nutritionist, I cannot but always start by saying that malnutrition comes in many forms. And not to complicate matters, but I did see that our audience are engaging with us and mentioning starvation and hunger. And that's a very important component of how we assess malnutrition or inadequate diets. But there are of course other parameters that we look into. When we think about malnutrition, we think about both. And you alluded to that, Magdalena. We look at the under nutrition, be it from the underweight, the stunting and the wasting that we unfortunately still see among children under five and that unfortunately the pandemic has exacerbated these rates. We were doing fine, but somehow around the 2013-2014, we started seeing that kind of going off track again on food insecurity, on many of the other parameters of under nutrition. In parallel to that, the improvements that we were seeing and the tapering off of the stunting, if you wanted the wasting, was also unfortunately in parallel with an increase in overweight and obesity, which is where we talk about the excessive or over nutrition, excessive consumption of energy dense foods that are rich in and high in fat, in sugar and salt, which have been associated, of course, with higher incidences and prevalence of noncommunicable diseases of all sorts, which are the leading causes of death in both high and low to middle income countries. Of course, in parallel to the infectious diseases that are affected by malnutrition. So when we think about malnutrition, we think about, again, the numbers. And if I want to just kind of portray these, and these are based on the state of food insecurity report that was published earlier this year. And I'm looking just to kind of get the exact numbers here and the weight of them. So when we talk about 22% of children under five that were found to be stunted, this is, we're talking translating to $149 million in 2020 and at global level. Of course, these differ by continents and there are certain regions in Asia and Africa and sub-Saharan Africa where the rates are unfortunately higher. When we look at wasting, which is too thin for height, we're looking at 45 million. So almost approaching 7% of the children under five and we have 38.9 million children who are suffering from overweight and obesity also under five. An age group that we were for a long time as nutritionists worried about to reach to a point where we're having to fight the under and the over nutrition when we are at that time, unfortunately. And parallel to that and to add more complexity to the matter, the adult obesity rates are quite high. The pediatric overweight and obesity, we're talking here about adolescents. We're talking about school age population and age group that's very close and dear to my heart and the research work that we've been doing to try to combat that and whatever progress we've been doing, unfortunately, hasn't been catching up as much as the challenges that we're facing or the shocks that we're facing. And if I also want to highlight something you've mentioned, it's very important and it's the talk of the town, as you say. It's when we talk about the solution and this transformation of the food system that we're calling for, it has to be with healthy and sustainable diets. Pre-pandemic, three billion people did not have access to healthy and nutritious food. And these numbers are where we're only further exacerbated with the pandemic. The system definitely needs to improve to be pro-people, to be more equitable and to ensure that all people, rural, urban, higher, low-middle income country, residents, refugees, internally displaced, are capable and have access. So the definition of food security acts as to all people at all times, the right to food. And this is something that have been published in many reports over the past couple of years, the high-level panel of experts on food security and nutrition have been calling for that. They've put a lot of excellent food systems framework in place. And the discussion today at the food summit is how can we translate these frameworks into actions, into actual solutions, then we can then test them and test those trade-offs that we talk about between environment, health, economics. How can this be translated into specific context solutions? That's where the challenge lies. And that's why there's a galvanized effort to talk about sustainability. If you want to stop this trend and improve it and meet the SDG goals, we cannot continue business as usual. This is definitely a pivotal time for us. Absolutely, very good point. And indeed, even though increasingly we're talking about food system, we're talking about interconnection of systems, we'll come back to this in a minute. As you just emphasized, we need to zoom in on specific solutions. So, Jennifer, I wanted to turn to you. What you're proposing, where you would like all of us collectively to focus our attention, is one specific solution. So through microbiome, focus on the microbiome, you can see a way forward towards a much more healthy diet, more productive food system also. And there is, of course, another important element that ties in with this, and that is reducing antimicrobial resistance. Can you tell us more about that specific solution? Yeah, so it is one of the possible solutions. Much of the antibiotics we use in agriculture today goes towards improving productivity of farms. So making the animals get bigger faster. It also goes towards preventing disease in agriculture, so keeping them healthy so they can get bigger faster. This works because healthier animals grow faster. So one way to remove some of the reliance on antibiotics for both productivity and for animal health is to actually make the animals healthy through modifying their microbiomes, through optimizing their microbiomes. And in the work we're doing, we're seeing that it might be possible. There are specific microbiomes that do seem to resist infection, thus reducing our reliance on antibiotics. In several of our trials, we've lost, the antibiotics don't promote growth any better than our modified microbiomes, so it's very encouraging. But beyond that, producing food with lower bacteria levels will also help waste. We lose a lot of food through wastage, through outbreak recalls, and we lose a lot of food through spoilage. So making these more microbial, with higher microbial integrity, will actually reduce the food wastage in those perspectives as well. Really, really important points. And this idea of microbiome engineering, so to speak, modifying the microbiome in animals, and of course, we should also remember, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's also relevant in the context of aquatic food, not just terrestrial food, right? And then of course, there is quite a lot of awareness about looking after our own microbiomes, which of course contribute to our ability to just assimilate food appropriately. I wanted to turn, we touched on the issue of antimicrobial resistance, which is incredibly significant. It has knock-on effects on of course, medical applications also. I wanted to do another little poll with our audience briefly to ask the question for again, for your voting, there'll be a link in the chat. If you could cast your vote as to what the proportion of all antibiotics manufactured is used in the food sector. So you will, when you look at the possible poll, you'll have a number of ranges, but with exception of one, there's a 50%, the others are ranges, please cast your vote. What is the proportion of all antibiotics manufactured that are used in the food sector? There you go, we have split votes. Yeah, so essentially most, now we have a much more divided vote, although it is a complex picture. Jennifer, I'm going to turn to you to tell us exactly actually what the proportion is. Yeah, it's a really hard thing to measure and it's based on self-reporting in a lot of instances, but our best guess is that it's somewhere in the 70 to 80% range of all antibiotics manufactured are used for food production. I think this is such a powerful, forget to remember, most of us would not guess, even maybe around 50%, but not the vast majority of antibiotics produced are used in the context of food production. Thank you for that. I wanted to come back to the issue of the food system. We increasingly talk about the importance of food production as a system. We touched on this a couple of times already. Can I ask you to elaborate a little more why it is so important that we talk about the system, the food production as a system? Lamise, you talked about trade-offs at the very beginning when in your first set of statements, could you maybe pick up that topic first? Sure. I think I want to just also take a step back and define how we see food systems. You've mentioned something very important, which is food production being an integral component of it within the food supply. However, the food system is definitely more complex and within the food supply chain, we're talking about food production, we're talking about food processing, distribution, then talking about a very important component, which is the food environment, where people are accessing the food, what kind of labeling is going on, what kind of promotional work or campaigns have been? Access to the supermarket's distance from the supermarket, economic access to the food, if we have access to healthy nutritious food. So when we think about food systems, there is the food supply, there's the food environment, and of course, something that is very important in our work, which is the consumer behavior, what the consumers are deciding to consume. So not just what we are providing or producing, but rather the consumers' own decisions that really push the supply demand whole conversation. And the demand has been in more healthy and sustainable diets, which is why a lot of the private industry and a lot of the big corporations have been tackling issues from the production to the processing and distribution to tackle many of the issues that we face. You've mentioned, and my colleague, Jennifer, mentioned food waste, and that's like one third, 30% of the food of the world is being lost, lost in the post-harvest losses or even making it all through the food system to the consumer choices and then to the food waste at that level. And of course, there's specific definitions for food loss and food waste, not to go into the depths of it, but I just wanted to make sure that when we think about it, that system is complex by itself. So then when we talk about healthy and sustainable diets, the decisions when we call agriculture should be more nutrition sensitive or the interventions and programs should be more nutrition sensitive, it doesn't start at the environment. It does start from the beginning of how we produce the food and whether the food we produce is safe, it's enough to ensure the rural livelihoods and the economic productivity of the farmers or if the fisheries and so on and so forth, but it also ensures that we can do this sustainably so they can continue to produce food to feed healthy and nutritious food. So that's an important thing to talk about. Also, another thing I've been mentioning and I really also wanna make sure that that's clear, the sustainable diet term that we are using and that is where the trade-offs come in. So to answer your question here, the trade-offs that I talked about are the trade-offs that are embedded within when we say a sustainable diet. It's a diet that takes nutrition and health on one side of the equation and they are the dietary patterns that should promote healthy bodies, healthy being productive and all of the good stuff. Excuse me. In addition to that, you should take into consideration all the other factors that affect sustainability which are the environmental parameters which includes, for example, our carbon footprint or the greenhouse gas emissions, the water footprint, the energy and so on and so forth. So these are the trade-offs that we talk about. And in the field of our research and many other researchers, of course, but I have to mention that in my institution at AUB, we've been looking at this water energy food health nexus from the former dean, Rabia Mahattar, to our colleague, Dr. Hwalla and many others on the teams that I work with. We've been providing models of what a sustainable diet means and we've been providing them using linear modeling techniques to take into consideration those trade-offs. We're providing some scenarios of what could be a sustainable diet or sustainable food-based dietary guidelines for specific age groups. And there are those examples that I'm happy to elaborate on. I just wanted to make sure that when we talk about those that it's clear that also we're pushing for trade-offs across the food system so that we can ensure that we are really doing things sustainably and not just promoting healthy diets but not necessarily taking into consideration whether we can continue to do that for the future generations. Over to you. Absolutely, very, very important point. And I wanted to bring in Jennifer here because in this very broad umbrella discussion that we're now having rightly so, almost at every point in this discussion I can see a role of, for example, fundamental research into the nature of the microbiome and how can that be engineered or tinkered with. Jennifer, would you like to come in and make a comment on that? How that synergy can be remembered and brought out? Yeah, and I think that really plays in to the systems approach we've been talking about. We're not separate from what happens on farms and farms are not separate from what happens in our societies. When we're looking at this, I think it's really important to remember how bad the microbiome or the antibiotic resistance crisis is going to get. The current projections are that 10 million people a year are gonna die by 2050 of resistant infections which is a huge number. So every time we try to up production on the farms by using antibiotics, we're contributing to this crisis because these genes don't stay on our farms. They move into our farmers whose health I'm very concerned about and then they move into our communities when we see them in the hospitals. So this whole idea of coming up with ways to cut this chain so we don't see the consequences in our clinics and in our farmers and in our communities is something we really have to think about because we don't fully understand food systems at this level and how what we do on our farms affects us and why. So it's an important part to look at the basic science of that and try to understand it so we can intervene. Absolutely, so thank you for that reminder. And so we see how the food, the environment, the food with as many aspects, the environment, health, how they're all interconnected. And yet, this year we have the, well today starting UN Food Systems Summit, later in the year we'll have the Climate COP and then of course in the spring of next year, the Biodiversity Summit in Kunming. Very briefly, because unfortunately we're coming to the end of our time, isn't there a missed opportunity that we compartmentalizing these events in this way? What do you think? Should we not make a greater effort to bring them together? Jennifer, do you want to jump in on that? Yes, sure. Yeah, I mean all of these are going to clash eventually like climate is driving emergence of disease, which is driving emergence of more interventions on farms. Like we have to talk about these as the interconnected issues that they are. We can't be separate and we have to do that from the basic research perspective as well because all of these things are going to come crashing into each other. Absolutely, let me final word on that. I just want to say that earlier today there was an excellent talk about breaking silos for food and climate security. And I think that I just kind of taking up from that concept, the FAO director, WFP director and many other of the attendees were really promoting the idea that we should break the silos. And that goes back to your question. I'm going to look at it from a positive angle that we do have several summits and events that are galvanizing, again the efforts in bringing stakeholders from all across sectors to talk about such complex systems that come into play. So I think from that angle it's good, but breaking silos is very important. I don't think we can continue business as usual. I think we are, the house is on fire, the world is on fire as the video started. We cannot sit there and watch and think maybe in 10 years how we can act. I think we all feel the pressure, especially with the climate change and the crises that are happening, not to mention the pandemic, the ongoing protracted conflicts and wars, they're all triggering this economic recessions, which triggers more wars and more climate disasters. So it's about time that we work together. Thank you very much for your powerful words, both of you and your suggestions. We don't have time to repeat the last question of the Slido poll, but those of you who are listening, I think you will now probably appreciate that there are many reasons. You will agree that there are many reasons for which to change your diet and think about food from a sustainable, but also a holistic interconnected perspective. Thank you, Lamise. Thank you, Jennifer. And thank you for all of you for joining our session. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.