AwF Director Dave Conley attends McGill Conference on Global Food Security
Category:UpdatesMcGill’s 6th Conference on Global Food Security took place in Montreal, Canada on 8-9 October 2013 with about 300 participants from Canada, USA, UK, Ethopia, Kenya, Haiti and numerous other nations in both developed and developing regions of the world. The theme of the conference this year was Strategies against Food Security and Hunger and began with a public lecture by Marco Ferroni, executive director of Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture in Switzerland, on the topic of Government and other Obstacles to Food Security: A Tale of Leadership and Cooperation.
AwF Director Dave Conley met Dr Ferroni after his lecture for a brief introduction that he followed up with the next day to explore possible networking and collaboration between AwF and the Syngenta Foundation.
Fortuitously, Dave had the opportunity to meet with Calestous Juma of the Harvard Kennedy School prior to Dr Juma’s special keynote address entitled Agricultural Biotechnology and Food Security: Threat or Opportunity? Well-known in the field of food security and biotechnology, Dr Juma is the Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director, Science Technology and Globalization Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University. His book, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa has been well-received around the world; you can read more about this book by clicking here.
Over a 24-hour period, Dave was able to meet with a wide variety of people in the food security, nutrition, and hunger alleviation community from around the world. Many of these contacts will be important in the coming months as AwF begins its outreach campaign to attract more funding support and partnership development.