Informing G20 on the World’s Food Needs
June 18, 2014
The Crawford Fund has been assisting CSIRO and the office of the Australian Chief Agriculture Scientist this week with the CSIRO Food for Growth Forum and the G20 Agricultural Chief Scientists meeting.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that the total investment required to meet the world’s food needs in 2050 will be some $83 billion per year. Realistically, most of this will need to come from the private sector and be directed at the developing world.
Science, business and government will need to work more effectively together to fund, develop and deliver innovations needed for the human development, economic progress, peace and security that food and nutritional security bring.
“Food4Growth” www.food4growth.com.au (F4G) was an international invite-only, high level gathering held in Brisbane from 16-17 June (with a field trip on 18 June) to bring together science and business leaders from overseas and within Australia with an interest in communicating their views to the G20 Governments. Those attending are from international organisations, businesses as well as science and development agencies from G20 and other countries with an interest in food and nutrition security.
The Meeting of G20 Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS), the key G20 forum on agri-food science and policy, will follow F4G on 19-20 June, also in Brisbane, and will be presented with a communiqué from the F4G Forum for consideration.
Key international speakers include:
- Dr David Nabarro, UN Special Representative on Food Security and Nutrition and Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement
- Gyana RanjanDas, Vice President, Swissre, a leading global insurer which was a pioneer in weather risk management
- Professor Martin van Ittersum, Wageningen University, The Netherlands – addressing economic and social factors that determine global food supply
- Dr Wayne Powell, Chief Science Officer, CGIAR Consortium – speaking on public-private partnerships to speed innovation
- Santiago Sedaca, President of Carana Corporation and David Browning, Senior Vice President, Technoserve– explaining successful business solutions to poverty and hunger
- Prof Molly Jahn, University of Madison-Wisconsin, and Special Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost for Sustainability – addressing global public goods underpinning food security and agricultural production
The key issues that F4G tackled are:
- How can public sector R&D work with business to develop and deliver innovations?
- What incentives and barriers impact on private sector led innovation and business development?
- How do we ensure development is sustainable in terms of natural resource use and is also socially inclusive and effective in generating jobs and economic opportunities?
- What can be done to encourage public and private investment in agriculture?
The Fund looks forward to learning the outcomes of the Forum and the impact on the G20 around food security.
Media interviews arranged by the Fund for Forum speakers include:
How to feed a hungry planet
ABC Radio National Bush Telegraph, 17 June 2014
Global food on forum agenda
Farm online, 16 June 2014
