News
Sustainable Food Systems - Towards Food for All
04-08-2010
"Achievement of a sustainable food system will require reform of the food production system, modernizing the food processing chain, and implementation of policy and market reforms and appropriate economic reforms."
To achieve these goals, CAETS recommended seven actions in the CAETS Symposium Statement Sustainable Food Systems - Toward Food for All.
The 31st Annual Meeting of the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS) took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 29-30, 2010. A symposium held June 29 focused on how to achieve a sustainable global food system, which allows increased food production while reducing poverty and hunger and over-exploitation of natural resources. It was noted that past advances in food production, obtained in part by over-exploitation of natural resources, as more land was brought into agriculture and new fish stocks were exploited, must be avoided. Achieving sustainable management of natural resources while meeting increasing future food demands was recognized as the key to success.
The conference rejected the notion that efforts to assure food security for all must necessarily be at the expense of the environment. While the continuing need to develop new technologies, particularly in recognition of the vulnerability of food security to global climate change, should not be underestimated, some of the solutions to achieve a sustainable food system are available through regional adaptation and utilization of technologies already developed. Progress toward food security today can be facilitated today by adoption of economically and politically feasible government interventions, for example, to provide access to available technologies to indigent farmers.
See website CAETS.
