An event, organised by the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) and designed to explore competing visions of food security and how Europe can best meet its supply challenges, took part in Brussels, Belgium this week.
Under the banner 'Food Supply Forum: Choices and Implications', the conference attracted over 150 participants to the Concert Noble in Brussels, with speakers discussing the impact of a range of issues including population growth, food shortages, food pricing, climate change and biodiversity of food supply.
The event was opened by professor John Beddington, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, who asserted that all agricultural policy must be founded on science and have a sound evidence basis.
'Having a chief scientific advisor with the responsibility to look at all stages of policy development has real potential to improve policy-making,' said Mr Beddington, who also cautioned about what he described as a 'perfect storm' with four drivers of energy, water, food and climate.
'Food security is not an unfortunate condition of some distant land but a very European problem,' said Jacques du Puy, president of ECPA. 'The biggest threat may not be nature, but ideological clutter that tends to obscure our vision. What we need is evidence, scientifically valid evidence.'
Meanwhile, Neil Parish, former chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, called for food security to be the key issue for the European Union's incoming scientific advisor.
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