Ezra's Round Table/Systems Seminar: Shenggen Fan (IFPRI) - Achieving food security and nutrition for all by 2025 through sustainable agriculture and food systems

Friday, April 18, 2014 at 12:00pm Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall, 253 Ezra's Round Table/Systems Seminar: Shenggen Fan (IFPRI) - Achieving food security and nutrition for all by 2025 through sustainable agriculture and food systems The global agriculture and food system is increasingly vulnerable despite major technological, policy, and institutional advancements. The system is challenged by a mix of factors such as higher demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel, natural resource scarcities, food safety and agricultural-related health hazards, and climate change. Moreover, close to 850 million people worldwide still suffer from chronic hunger and over 2 billion people continue to be affected by micronutrient deficiencies. Against this background, achieving food security and nutrition for all must be top priority for the post-2015 agenda and the global community should aim to achieve this goal by 2025. The impressive experiences of countries such as Brazil, China, Thailand, and Vietnam suggest that achieving food security and nutrition by 2025 is realistic. Importantly, sustainable agriculture and food systems must be leveraged to achieve this goal. This presentation will cover what it takes to do this. It will focus on the role of sustainable agricultural and food systems in promoting resource-use efficiency, while reducing negative environmental impacts, as well as enhancing nutrition along the entire value chain. Bio: Shenggen Fan (樊胜根) has been director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) since 2009. Dr. Fan joined IFPRI in 1995 as a research fellow, conducting extensive research on pro-poor development strategies in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. He led IFPRI’s program on public investment before becoming the director of the Institute’s Development Strategy and Governance Division in 2005. He has served as the Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Food and Nutrition Security since 2012. In 2014, Dr. Fan received the Hunger Hero Award from the World Food Programme in recognition of his commitment to and leadership in fighting hunger worldwide. Dr. Fan received a Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University in China.