When the war in Ukraine began, Howard Buffett and his foundation were poised to meet the moment.
CEO of the foundation that bears his name, Buffett’s organization is known for funding three things: food security, conflict mitigation and public safety. All three priorities follow his own experience as a farmer, lawman and businessman. And all three are critical wartime funding priorities.
But it’s his interest and expertise in agriculture that may end up making the real difference in his commitment to supporting Ukraine. Aside from spending much of his life as a farmer, Buffett has been funding agriculture for years. But as the kind of aggression not seen since World War II rages across a country described as the breadbasket of Europe, he and his foundation are facing perhaps the highest stakes yet, with global implications.
Since the conflict began, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has deployed nearly $150 million in Ukraine, supporting its farmers, but also backing everything from rebuilding infrastructure to providing prosthetic limbs to veterans and civilians. Buffett himself — who is known for having a high tolerance for risk in his giving and a willingness to get up close to the problems his foundation takes on — has also been spending significant time in the war-torn country. We recently spoke with Buffett as he headed over on his fifth trip to Ukraine since April, on a mission to understand the best ways to help.
“To figure it out,” he said, “you have to show up.”
Circle of competence
The Howard G. Buffett Foundation has been grantmaking since 1999, when Buffett’s parents gave each of their three children $26 million to establish foundations. Operations rapidly expanded after 2006, when their father Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of the multinational juggernaut Berkshire Hathaway, committed 85% of his wealth to philanthropy. Gifting shares to his children’s foundations became a regular part of that process.
Through 2022, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation has distributed $2.14 billion in support of better quality-of-life outcomes for some of the world’s most marginalized people. Priorities have evolved over time; the M.O. of seeing problems up close has been there from the start.
“I have relied on my dad’s advice throughout,” Buffett said of funding decisions, “but especially on two things he taught me: Stay within your circle of competence, and always push yourself outside of your comfort zone.”
That advice has taken him to some of the most dangerous places on the planet. The foundation’s tagline: “taking risks to catalyze change and transform lives,” follows suit. Take, for example, the foundation’s support for cleaning up land mines in and around Catatumbo during residual conflict, or its work in areas of the Congo that were chaotically pulsing with small arms fire.
An initial foray into wildlife conservation helped Buffett realize that many of the problems he saw grew from hunger issues, and that food security is both a cause and effect of instability. He’s been trying to get to the root of things ever since. The foundation’s public safety work is largely based in the U.S. But Buffett is more widely known for projects that address the drivers of global problems, in places that others may find too dangerous, corrupt or unstable to engage.
Today, priority countries include Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Rwanda. In Colombia, work centers on peace-building, in partnership with government activation of an historic peace accord. In El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, the foundation addresses food security as a driver of migration, along with human trafficking and improving conditions for farmworkers.
As recently reported in IP, extensive, long-running partnerships in Rwanda helped train smallholder farmers and got an irrigation cooperative called NAICO up and running. In all, the foundation has managed projects in more than 80 locations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Buffett in Ukraine
Buffett said he first visited Ukraine three decades ago, in 1991, when the country was still part of the Soviet Union, with John Cavanaugh, then a U.S. congressman from Nebraska. He’d been asked by the minister of agriculture to explain how U.S. farmers worked, which he believes “didn’t make sense at the time for farmers in a communal system.” Months later, the Soviet Union fell.
When Russia first crossed Ukrainian borders in February of last year, Buffett said he saw the issue as a matter of conflict resolution rather than a humanitarian problem. But it didn’t take long before he drew parallels to the tactics Russia employed in 2008 against Georgia, a former republic that also declared its independence, and recognized the need for ongoing aid.
Like many, he was taken by the bravery of Ukrainian citizens standing their ground and the appeal from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for ammunition to defend Kyiv instead of a ride out of town.
Buffett said he watched as the conflict became a war on civilians, as infrastructure, healthcare systems, churches and schools were razed and the Russian army mounted nonstop attacks on things that make it “difficult for the government to function,” like electrical grids.
In April, as the situation worsened, he made his first trip over to see how he could help, armed with a budget “arbitrarily set” at $150 million. By year end, support for Ukraine comprised roughly half of the foundation’s $308 million in 2022 distributions.
Although Howard Buffett and the foundation have operated in several dangerous regions, he said the work in Ukraine is still new territory. “We’ve worked in a lot of conflict areas, including 20 refugee camps. All in terrible conditions.” But all of it centered upon internal conflict. “We’ve never worked in a country where another country has invaded a sovereign nation.” The concerted attacks on civilians are also something he called “completely different in my lifetime.”
“The best soil in the world”
Many of Buffett’s first moves in Ukraine have been in farming and food security. Interventions include demining explosives left behind, providing farm supplies and equipment, and bringing meals to the front lines and schools through providers on the ground.
A lot of experts can tell you that Ukraine’s deep water ports and inexpensive acreage make it Europe’s breadbasket and place it among the world’s greatest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. But few donors besides Howard Buffett are likely to know that the reason the country exports more than 45 million tons of grain annually is due to a soil he calls “the best in the world.” That’s chernozem, a black soil rich in organic matter that’s present in 65% of the country’s arable land. “Anyone can produce and ship,” said Buffett, “but no one can magically develop the best soil in the world.”