Our Green Week eyes and ears have reported in again today from Berlin. Here’s a story on what’s happening from Janet Kanters:
During International Green Week (IGW) in Berlin, ministers of agriculture and leading representatives of agriculture and the food industry from all over the world will be discussing global solutions.
German industry is using the Green Week as a platform where global solutions for safeguarding world food supplies can be discussed with more than 30 ministers of agriculture and over 1,000 experts from agriculture and the food industry.
The 1st Berlin Summit of Agriculture Ministers, the 2nd International Conference of Agriculture Ministers and the International Forum for Food and Agriculture (IFAE), all taking place on January 17, are the most important conferences in the history of the Green Week.
“Never before have the leading representatives of every stage in the value-added chain of agri-business been able to engage in such high-level discussions and on such a global scale with agricultural policymakers on issues of vital importance to the future of humankind,” says Dr. Christian Göke, chief operating officer of Messe Berlin GmbH, organizer of IGW Berlin 2009.
The Federation of German Food and Drink Industries, the German Farmers’ Union, the German Agricultural, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations are jointly staging the first IFAE on the subject of ‘World food situation 2020 – innovative solutions in the face of limited resources’.
Over 1,000 experts from agriculture and the food industry from all over the world will be meeting here in order to present new approaches and models, to introduce more sustainability to the debate and to discuss recommended courses of action.
In addition to the plenary session dealing with the ‘World Food Situation 2020’, there will also be three panels, which will investigate what strategies can be adopted by agriculture and the food industry to cope with climate change, as well as asking why agriculture, which has been neglected for so long, is now seen as the key to global development processes, and also why safeguarding livestock health makes a decisive contribution to providing humankind with healthy food.
The photo is also courtesy of Janet.