Youth Ag Summit set to consider food sovereignty
A variation in production of just 2% is the difference between a shortage and surplus of key commodities, young farmers attending a Youth Ag Summit in Canada have been told.
Art Froehlich, a farmer who also runs his own international business exporting food from Canada, told summit delegates that if you looked at the global trade in agriculture then the difference between a surplus and shortage in the three staples of wheat, rice and corn was just 2%.
When food shortages occurred it tended to be the developed countries that managed to get hold of the food, leaving developing countries short, he said.
More thought therefore needed to be given to the idea of food sovereignty. “We have to allow countries to have sovereignty over their food so they are not at the vagaries of the market.”
The Youth Ag Summit, which involves about 120 young people from more than 20 countries, is taking place in Calgary, Canada from 19-25 August.
Delegates, including three from the UK, have been invited to discuss the issue of how to feed a hungry planet over the coming years.
Robynne Anderson, founder of a consulting firm to the agriculture sector called Emerging Ag Inc, told delegates that agriculture had been put “on the shelf” by policy makers for 30 years and it had taken food shortages in 2007 to wake them up to its importance.
She urged young people in agriculture to seize their moment and to speak up and to speak together to keep agriculture at the top of the global agenda.
Farmers Weekly ran a competition earlier in 2013, in conjunction with conference sponsor Bayer CropScience, to send a reader on an all-expenses paid trip to attend the summit.
You can follow the conference on twitter with the hashtag #youthagsummit