Productivity and Food Security Symposium

I&I NSW organised a Productivity and Food Security Symposium in Sydney (21 Oct) highlighting the need to address global food security now for future generations.

Several key themes emerged during the symposium, including:

Food security is one of the biggest issues facing our planet.
Providing food has been a challenge for society for centuries, but the primary industries sector is experiencing rapid change.
World-wide food shortages, rising food prices, the global financial crisis, a changing climate, other environmental issues, skill shortages and increasing biosecurity threats are issues affecting food security right now.
Fortunately, consumers in NSW are unlikely to go hungry in the foreseeable future, however for the developing world - the food crisis has already arrived.
Global food output must increase by 75 per cent by the year 2025, and it must have doubled by 2050 to meet expected demand.
Put another way, we must produce as much food in the next 50 years as we have produced in all of human history.
NSW plays a vital role in directly feeding people in developing nations because we export around half of our agricultural produce and our research helps developing nations address food security issues.
Research is a key way of addressing these issues.
Keynote speaker Prof Julian Cribb said public expenditure on research needs to go up by 400% to avoid the coming global famine where we have to feed the protein-equivalent of 13 billion people by 2050.

Research for Action plan

Research for Action: Productivity and Food Security [PDF] plan launched by the Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald on October 21, 2009.

Presentations

Download
Productivity and Food Security Symposium agenda - Powerpoint	60.0 kb
Adjunct Professor Julian Cribb: the coming famine: the risks to global food security	1.9 mb
Adjunct Professor Julian Cribb - The Coming Famine - speaking notes	106.0 kb
Mr Bill McKiernan, Beef Research - Powerpoint	1.7 mb
Mr John Oliver, Farming Systems Research - Powerpoint	4.1 mb
Dr Geoff Allan, Aquaculture Research - Powerpoint	1.6 mb
Dr Jenny Ekman, Horticulture Research - Powerpoint	4.5 mb
Dr Richard Sheldrake, I&I NSW Director-General - Welcome and Introduction for Minister Macdonald	1.3 mb
Ms Renata Brooks, Executive Director, Science & Innovation - New directions for I&I NSW	2.8 mb
Adj Professor Julian Cribb FTSE, Principal, Julian Cribb & Associates - Defining the global challenge	10.8 mb
Mr Bill McKiernan, Meat Industry, Research Leader Animal Production - How research can help	5.2 mb
Mr John Oliver, Grains Industry, Research Leader Farming Systems South - How research can help	5.4 mb
Dr Jenny Ekman, Horticulture, Research Leader, Horticulture - How research can help	5.3 mb

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Extra material related to the Symposium

Minister's media release PDF [21 October 2009]
Aquaculture Research Leader Geoff Allan quoted in 'Here's the catch: we love seafood to death' on the front page of Thursday 22 October's Sydney Morning Herald.
Director Productivity and Food Security Alison Bowman on ABC Rural NSW Country Hour

...More material from the Symposium will be posted here as it becomes available.