Ed Conway on Trade Wars, Bread Monocultures, and the Fragile Supply Chains Behind Modern Life
Sky News Economics editor Ed Conway discusses his book Trade World, based on two years of research into how bread, cars, and textiles are made and traded, arguing globalization has made goods cheaper by concentrating production into a few places, creating dangerous vulnerabilities. He highlights monocultures in crops such as wheat and bananas, focusing on the wheat disease UG99 and how industrial bread relies on just one or two wheat varieties, drawing parallels to the Gros Michel banana collapse and risks to the Cavendish.
This is the first part of our interview with Ed. The second part drops later this week.
Watch the full interview on YouTube here.
Chapters
00:00 Food Supply Sword
00:29 Meet Ed Conway
02:08 Will We Run Out
05:05 Bread Still Matters
06:44 Innovation Beats Doom
13:37 Writing Material World
18:32 Three Products Focus
22:43 AI And Conversation
24:17 UG99 Wheat Threat
24:54 Monocultures And Risk
33:29 Chokepoints And Stockpiles
40:56 Tracking Product Journeys
42:17 Russia Wheat Surge
42:47 Wheat as Power
44:30 Automation and Bakeries
48:25 Lights Out Mills
52:04 AI as Job Tool
53:51 Markets Need Work
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Producer: Thuy Dong
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