Trade and Innovations' Place in Shaping Global Ag: An Agri-Pulse Podcast

Reprinted with permission from Agri-Pulse (November 11, 2025)

As one of WIA's key event partners, Agri-Pulse, with its Washington, D.C-based editorial team focused on food and farm policy coverage, provides up-to-the-minute news that impacts the ag value chain.

In a recent Agri-Pulse Newsmakers podcast, associate editor Lydia Johnson spoke to Tom Vilsack, CEO of World Food Prize Foundation and former U.S. Secretary of Ag, about how, a year after the abrupt closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development, national aid can be reinvented, the feasibility of moving the Food for Peace program to USDA, and what his thoughts are on how the new administration's tariff policy could affect long-term market access for U.S. farmers.

Johnson also spoke to 2025 World Food Prize Laureate and Embrapa Soybean researcher Mariangela Hungria, who is a Brazilian agronomist and microbiologist noted for pioneering work on biological nitrogen fixation and the use of beneficial soil bacteria as microbial inoculants for tropical crops. She addressed the advance of biologicals in Brazilian farming, and how the “Micro Green Revolution” has changed the trajectory of agriculture in Brazil.

Here are snippets of the podcast. Click the image above to listen to the podcast in its entirety.

Lydia Johnson, Agri-Pulse: Welcome to Agri-Pulse Newsmakers, where we aim to take you to the heart of ag policy. I’m your host, Lydia Johnson. Our guests this week are World Food Prize Foundation CEO Tom Vilsack and 2025 World Food Prize laureate Dr. Mariangela Hungria, who join us to discuss global food security and Brazil’s rise as a global ag leader through soil microbiology.

The World Food Prize Borlaug dialog will kick off next week (Editor’s note: This happened in late October). International assistance has been shaken up this year after the abrupt closure of the U.S. agency for International Development. We asked former secretary and current World Food Prize Foundation CEO Tom Vilsack how the U.S. aid closure has impacted global hunger.

Tom Vilsack, World Food Prize Foundation: Obviously it’s created a challenge because of the sudden nature of the decision that was made. Having said that, I think what’s interesting is the reaction that people are now using to essentially look at ways in which, the need can be met, new opportunities, new structures, new partnerships, the leveraging of resources in the private sector and the philanthropic sector are now working collaboratively together.

There was an interesting op ed that was written by Raj Shah, who used to be the administrator with USAID, who is now in charge of the Rockefeller Foundation. He suggested that now we’re looking at a sort of a new way of thinking, about development, where the onus and the responsibility starts with the local community, starts with the country or, area of the of the world that is currently dealing with food insecurity. The responsibility they have to feed their people and to work collaboratively with the private sector and the philanthropic world to raise the resources necessary to ensure that there’s adequate production. 

Tom Vilsack, World Food Prize Foundation

So a lot of opportunity, a lot of innovation. A lot of promise, despite the challenges now in the short term, there’s just no question there are going to be some folks who are going to suffer, and we’re going to try to do what we can at the World Food Prize Foundation to alert people to the situation, to encourage the private sector and the philanthropic sector to act quickly and responsibly to try to meet this need.

Lydia Johnson, Agri-Pulse: Dr. Mariangela Hungria has dedicated much of her life’s work using soil microbes to transform agriculture in Brazil and is being awarded the 2025 World Food Prize this year. We asked her why she began studying soil microbiology at the beginning of her career, when few others were focused on it.

Dr. Mariangela Hungria, World Food Prize laureate: Since the very first time I entered the University, I said, wow, I want to study biological microorganisms to help to produce more food, but in the more healthy way. But this was very unusual because at that time it was just chemicals and chemicals and chemicals.

Lydia Johnson, Agri-Pulse: I’m curious. Brazil farmers have adopted microbial inoculants in about 100 million acres, one of the highest rates of any country in the world. How did you convince producers to trust and embrace this technology, and how have you seen them implement that on the ground and in the fields?

Dr. Mariangela Hungria, World Food Prize laureate: Well, it’s very interesting because it’s not just something that you can build in 1 or 2 years. Like I said, I built this in 40 years. I had people who, before I came, like my supervisor, we had to create microbiology. Seemed to 1950s, 1960s here in Brazil. And they started, this idea of, well, we have a tropical agriculture, we have a shortage of fertilizers and we have to import them, so let’s try biological solutions.

For 40 years, every year I did field experiments, I did demonstration plots for the farmers and everything. It’s a continuous activity. If you stop at 2 or 3 years, the percentage of farmers that you see may decrease. The last five years, we’ve seen an explosion of the use of biologicals. But we were building these ideas in farmers that biologicals can replace the chemicals partially or fully, depending on the situation, for many years. But then as soon as farmers start to see the benefits, they really adopt it very easily.

Lydia Johnson, Agri-Pulse: Brazil has become somewhat of a global powerhouse in the agriculture space during your career. How is the focus on soil microbiology changed agriculture in Brazil through your career and as you’ve continued to do work in the space?

Dr. Mariangela Hungria, World Food Prize laureate: One interesting thing in Brazil is because of our climate, we can have 2 or 3 crops during one year because we do not have winter. So we grow throughout the year, and of course, for this type of cropping, we need fertilizers. There’s no way of doing agriculture in this large scale without fertilizers. But we import an average of 85% of our fertilizers, and they are very expensive.

The biologicals were key for us to go on as the main grain producers in the world for you have ideal ag here in Brazil, biological nitrogen fixation with the soybean crop. I work at the soybean center, so it’s the main crop that I work with. If we had to buy nitrogen fertilizers for the soybean crop, it would cost $26 billion a year.

Listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

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