International meeting of agricultural experts sets agenda for 2025 in face of growing hunger and climate change
International meeting: the Role of European Expertise in Agricultural Research for Development in 2025
Date: Thursday, May 10, 2007 1.30pm – 5.30pm
Venue: University of Greenwich: Edinburgh Room, Queen Anne Court, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, London SE10 9LS
An international meeting organised by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of the University of Greenwich will urgently argue for a new role for European agricultural research in the face of growing hunger and poverty because of climate change and environmental degradation.
Food expert Janice Jiggins and NRI Director Guy Poulter will argue that current food production and distribution is having frightening consequences for everyone – rich and poor, North and South – and that by 2025 “up to more than half the world’s population will face poverty and/or hunger”.
The meeting, organised by NRI with the European Consortium for Agricultural Research in the Tropics (ECART) and the UK Tropical Agricultural Association (TAA), will discuss how agricultural research for development (ARD) needs to radically up its game and widen its remit to meet the challenge. "The new ARD agenda…thus entails a shift away from the efficient management of linear throughput in agriculture to sustainable management of biological, physical, and hydrological cycles.” And: “ARD is no longer a matter of ‘science and technology’ but of placing ARD in societies under pressure in association with major institutional change.”
There are positive as well as negative developments at play, but "there is evidence that the sharing of information, data, and knowledge in fact has become more restricted as public agencies have withdrawn from research for what used to be considered public goods (food security; sustainable farming; healthy agro-eco-systems etc.) …Yet it could be said that the public interest in ARD is greater than it has ever been: food safety; human health; biodiversity; regulation of competition and risk under climate shocks demand greater public roles and investments in AR and ARD, not less.”
Journalists are welcome to attend the conference.
For more information, interviews and images contact:
Hester Brown
Press Officer
University of Greenwich
020 8331 7663
07876 193481
hester.brown@gre.ac.uk