Food Security - National Agricultural Biotechnology Council ...

PrefaceIn 2002, NABC’s fourteenth annual conference—hosted by the University of Minnesota—hadthe theme Foods for Health. The resulting proceedings volume, NABC Report14, was titled Integrating Agriculture, Medicine and Food for Future Health. In similar vein,in 2009, NABC published Food and Agricultural Research: Innovation to Transform HumanHealth1, a white paper proposing a 21 st -century plan to make food and agriculture a fullpartner in the endeavor to improve human health. Building on the themes presented inFood and Agricultural Research, NABC’s twenty-second conference, Promoting Health byLinking Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition, was convened at the University of California’sDavis campus in 2010. In 2011, the twenty-third NABC conference was hosted again bythe University of Minnesota, June 15–17, with food once more the underpinning issue.However, this time, diet was replaced by food security as the focus of discussion. FoodSecurity: The Intersection of Sustainability, Safety and Defense, addressed the realities of afood-insecure world in the 21 st century.Under the weight of a burgeoning global population, changing climate, rising foodprices, emerging pathogens, and concerns over environmental integrity and food safety,agriculture faces a period of transition as it is challenged to respond rapidly at local,regional, and global levels to the complex dimensions of food security. Agricultural biotechnology,as a promising way forward, looks to play a key role in the development oftechnologies that will help feed the world, yet substantial debate remains on how to bestcapitalize on its benefits while mitigating its risks.To foster discussion on these issues, NABC 23 was organized around four topic areas:• Sustainability and Needs of 2050 Agriculture;• Systems-Based Approaches to Food Protection and Safety;• Preparing for Emerging and Unknown Threats;• Emerging Biotechnologies to Promote Safety, Enable Defense, and Discourage Fraud.The focus on food security emphasized safety, chiefly from the perspectives of contaminationand terrorism. There was less stress on global food adequacy by 2050. An excellentcross-section of interdisciplinary talks was presented2 to 104 attendees by an impressivelist of speakers—from academia, industry, federal agencies, CDC, and FAO—and at theconclusion of each session, the presenters convened for panel question-and-answer sessions,to reflect on the issues raised and to take comments and questions from the audience. Asis traditional at NABC meetings, attendees had additional opportunities for discussionduring breakout workshop sessions3.1http://nabc.cals.cornell.edu/pubs/AgFood_web.pdf.2An overview of the presentations is provided on pages 3–11.3Workshop discussions are summarized on pages 15–23.vii