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BCPC forum will consider key issues 22 September 2003 Is there a continuing role for crop assurance schemes? How will the crop protection industry discharge its wider responsibility for informing and meeting consumer demands? These are some of the questions that will be raised at the Focus on Food Forum which takes place on Tuesday 11 November and Wednesday 12 November during the BCPC International Congress 2003 – Crop Science & Technology, in Glasgow, UK. The topic for Wednesday 12 November is Assured Crops – Understanding the Needs and Predicting the Future, explores the drivers for crop assurance schemes and assesses the likely trends over the next decade. It begins with Professor Chris Payne, chairman Assured Produce Scheme, from the University of Reading, who will review how the UK has developed world-leading assurance standards. This will be followed by Peter Brown, managing director, Scottish Quality Certification, Edinburgh, who will explore the value of farm assurance in an increasingly globalised world. Giving the food provider’s view, Gavin Bailey, head of technical policy and strategy and technical controller of fresh produce for Safeway Stores, Hayes will consider how assurance schemes can respond to changing markets and remain accessible and relevant for the producer. Mark Browne, of the UK’s Food Standards Agency, London will provide some advice on how to build consumer confidence in assurance schemes and consider at what consumers might want from them in future. Concluding the day’s session, David Houghton, farmer and chairman of Scottish Quality Cereals, Edinburgh and Jonathan Tipples, farmer, NFU Council member and vice chairman of Assured Food Standards will highlight the opportunities and threats posed by farm assurance for the primary producer. The Assured Crops session follows the first day of the Forum which takes a more general view of how consumer demands are influenced, and how they can be met. Forum organiser Colin Ruscoe explains, “It was important to have a panel of authoritative speakers who could cover the full spectrum, starting with how consumer views are influenced, and then leading on to what the crop production and protection industries are doing – both to deal with consumer concerns and to meet new needs. ” “We have certainly achieved this, with speakers including Professor Richard Shepherd, co-director of the Food, Consumer Behaviour and Health Research Centre at the University of Surrey; Graeme Miller, chairman of the Scottish Consumer Council; Glasgow, Doug Henderson MBE, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium, Peterborough, Christine Watson, team leader of organic research, the Scottish Agriculture Colleges (SAC), Aberdeen, Dr Stephen Humphreys, food industry support manager, Bayer CropScience at Cambridge and Kendra Gittus, commercial manager, wholefoods at Syngenta’s Jealott ’s Hill Research Centre,” he adds. The Forum, which is supported by Crops magazine, is recommended for primary producers and crop production advisers as well as food processors, manufacturers, marketers and retailers. The registration fee for the two-day Focus on Food Forum is £185 before 10 October and £230 after. Delegates can register for just one day at £110 before 10 October or £135 thereafter. The fee includes morning and afternoon tea and coffee plus a buffet lunch, a post-Forum copy of the speakers’ PowerPoint presentations and access to the BCPC Exhibition and the Cyber Café. Delegates registered to attend the main BCPC Congress may attend the Forum at no extra charge but this does exclude the buffet lunch. By logging onto the Congress website here,
delegates can register on-line, get details of the Focus on Food
Forum and keep well
informed of all other Congress events. |
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