CONFERENCE 2002

FOOD FOR THE FUTURE:
Opportunities for a crowded planet

Theatrette, New Parliament House, Canberra
Wednesday, 8 August 2002

There is no question that feeding the world's growing population is a serious challenge that requires all that science and technology has to offer if greater food security, world stability and sustainable development is to be achieved.

This event will:

• raise the range of options and issues related to increasing food production;

• inform and generate debate on the opportunities for conventional breeding technologies, biotechnology, and GM foods to bridge the gap between the future food supply and demand; and

• canvas a range of technical, humanitrian, social and ethical issues associated with this technology

Keynote Speaker:
Dr Gordon Conway, The President,
The Rockefeller Foundation

Where: New Parliament House Theatrette, Canberra
When: Thursday 8th August 2002
Time: 9.15am to 4.30pm

Other speakers include:

• Ms Beris Gwynne, Executive Director of the Foundation for Development Cooperation and formerly of World Vision, to present the ethical issues surrounding GMOs
  
• Dr Randy Hautea, Global Co-ordinator of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, to explain current trends and prospects for GM crops
  
• Ms Louise Sylvan, President of Consumers International and Director of the Australian Consumers' Association, to present consumer attitudes
  
• Mr Raul Montemayor, Executive Member of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers, to present farmer attitudes
  29 December, 2004 r, Land and Food Sciences, University of Queensland on the issues surrounding ownership of genes

The full program is below.

Biographical details of speakers
Short abstracts of speakers presentations

Further information on our keynote speaker is below:

Dr Gordon Conway and The Rockefeller Foundation

Dr Gordon Conway is a British agricultural ecologist. In 1998, while vice chancellor of the University of Sussex and Chair of the Institute for Development Studies (UK), he was appointed 12th President of the Rockefeller Foundation, based in New York City. Rockefeller ( www.rockfound.org ) is one of America's oldest and largest philanthropies. It has assets of about $3 billion and makes annual grants of about $147 million. Many grants are to institutions and people overseas and many help exploit science and technology to help poor people.Conway is the first non-U.S. citizen to lead the Rockefeller Foundation, which supports work in agricultural sciences, the global environment, health and population sciences, and the arts and humanities.

Major initiatives target female education in Africa and job opportunities and urban education in the United States.Conway has worked for more than 30 years to improve food production in developing countries by helping develop sustainable farming and pest control methods. Those methods are founded on the principles of modern ecology and farmer participation. Conway is ambitious to add more grassroots input from developing countries to international agricultural research.Gordon Conway was educated at the University of Wales (Bangor), Cambridge, Trinidad and California (Davis).

In the early 1960s, working in North Borneo, he pioneered use of integrated pest management. From 1970 to 1986, he was Professor of Environmental Technology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. During this period, he lived and worked in many countries in Asia and the Middle East. He then directed the sustainable agricultural program of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London. From 1988 to 1992 he worked as a representative of the Ford Foundation in New Delhi.

Conway has helped villagers in Pakistan and Ethiopia to define and solve their own agricultural and environmental problems and was one of the first in the 1980s to define and promote a 'sustainable agriculture'. He has chaired a U.K. think tank addressing race and ethnicity issues (the Runnymede Trust's Commission on British Muslims and Islamaphobia) and has written over 100 papers, monographs and books on applied ecology, resource and environmental management and international development.

The Crawford Fund thanks its supporters and sponsors for this event:

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Australia;
Agrifood Awareness Australia;
AusAID-The Australian Government's Overseas Aid Program
Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering;
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research;
CSIRO Plant Industry, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation;
Foundation for Development Cooperation;
Grains Research and Development Corporation

The ATSE Crawford Fund
1 Leonard Street
Parkville 3052
Victoria Australia
T: (03) 9347 8328
F: (03) 9347 3224
E: crawford@mira.net
W: www.crawfordfund.org