 |
 |
|
|
The Global Challenge: Sustainable Food Production 18 November 2002 The world faces the ultimate challenge – to provide enough food to maintain life. In a Symposium which ran during the BCPC Conference – Pests & Disease 2002, held in Brighton, UK, 18 - 21 November 2002, contributors explored what was needed for food production to be truly sustainable. In the preface to the Symposium proceedings, The Global Challenge: Sustainable Food Production Martin Hall of Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association (CCFRA) and Patrick Mitton of Bayer CropScience, Cambridge, referred to a comment made by Jacques Diouf, FAO Director General, Rome, which recognises the inescapable link between food security and economics. “It is a moral responsibility of all societies, communities and individuals to ensure that hunger is eradicated. It is the suffering endured by the world's hungry that keeps the commitment foremost in our minds, yet increasing recognition is also given to the fact that hunger and malnutrition act as an impediment to economic growth and welfare improvements,” stated Mr Diouf. Under the chairmanship of Mike Calvert of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (RASE), the papers presented at the Symposium considered some of the market demands and impinging factors that have developed with time and how situations vary between the major regions of the world. The driving force of change in food production i.e. the consumer, was the focus of papers from Jon Woolven, Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), Watford, UK and Willemien Bax, Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs, Brussels, who considered the situation from the point of view of a ‘developed’ marketplace. A personal insight, was given by John Chapple of New Millennium, Qingdao, China, into crop production systems and practices in China. Globally China has 25% of the world’s population and only 7% of the world’s cultivatable land. So it is unlikely that China will become a dominant force in world agriculture. The global supply chain brings with it inevitable controls and standards across international boundaries and Dr Christopher Knight, CCFRA, reviewed the latest issues relevant to food safety and quality assurance. Questioning the current market driven trends in
production systems in the developed world, Professor Dennis Avery
from The Centre for Global Food Issues, Virginia, USA warned of their
potential impact on global food sufficiency. Whilst Professor Nigel
Roome, from Erasmus University, Rotterdam, took up the theme of how
production systems interact with the environment. |
|
|
For
further information contact: |
 |
|
