Farming First attended the Economist’s Feeding the World summit, held in Amsterdam last week. We were on the ground at the conference, engaging with development practitioners from around the world who had come together to
discuss the urgent challenges related to food security and how we may work together to find sustainable solutions.
With speakers including representatives from diverse organisations and perspectives, the summit underlined the interconnected challenges surrounding food security that must be addressed, which is not simply about producing enough food.
The summit debated issues regarding tackling malnutrition, ‘smart partnerships’, building successful collaborations, empowering smallholders, the role of science and technology and tackling food waste. Nutrition emerged as a key area that must be addressed and that is moving-up the food security agenda. As Feijke Sijbesma, Chief Executive of DSM underlined, whilst millions continue to suffer from chronic hunger, a further 2 billion suffer from severe malnutrition, known as “hidden hunger” becoming one of the greatest challenges that food security must address.
Discussions also addressed the challenge of obesity which sits alongside that of hunger, emphasizing that food security must also address how millions of people are becoming over-fed, yet under-nourished. As Ellen Gustafson from The 30 Project said:
Obesity and hunger have both grown over recent years and need to be part of integrated solutions in tackling food security”
With the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, the conference tackled the core question of how food production may be doubled to meet increased population growth needs.
As the world moves towards defining a post-2015 development agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals, talks underlined the vital role that agriculture is set to play if these challenges are to be met and in finding sustainable solutions. Farming First TV spoke to some of the Feeding the World speakers to find their thoughts on the role agriculture has to play and how they think these challenges must be addressed. Keep checking the Farming First website as we will be uploading these exclusive interviews over the coming weeks…