Conference: Food Systems in the Age of Polycrisis
The global food system is at a tipping point.
If the shutdown that followed the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the fragilities of the global supply chains, then the Russian invasion of Ukraine thrust much of the global south into a severe food security crisis. As the agri-food system seeks to adapt to these crises, it is also facing the generational challenge of transitioning to a sustainable economy.
The agri-food sector is afflicted by what has been described as a polycrisis; a succession of crises that are interacting to create something that is worse than the sum of their parts. From the European Union’s “Farm-to-Fork strategy” to UK’s “National Food Strategy”, European governments are grappling with the challenge of mitigating these crises.
How do we make sense of the many challenges facing the agri-food sector at this moment? And what can be done about it?
Thinktank EUROPA and the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI Bio) have partnered up to discuss these challenges, at our half-day conference in the House of Industry.
PROGRAMME
14:00 – 14:15 Arrival and check-in
14:15 – 14:30 Welcome and Introduction by Sofie Carsten Nielsen, EU Bio Project Director, Confederation of Danish Industry
14:30 – 15:00 KEYNOTE: Understanding the systematic challenges of the global food system with Henry Dimbleby, Author of ‘Ravenous: How to get Ourselves and our Planet into Shape’, and lead on the UK’s widely acclaimed ‘National Food Plan’.
15:00 – 15:30 MODERATED CONVERSATION: The challenge of the century: what will it take to make the European food system sustainable? with Riyong Kim, Head of Programme for Sustainability Transitions, European Environmental Agency, Stefan Sipka, Senior Policy Analyst, European Policy Centre, and Mette Damgaard Nielsen, Senior Scientific Manager, Novo Nordisk Foundation
15:30 - 16:00 BREAK
16:00 – 16:30 MODERATED CONVERSATION: Agri-food systems in an age of disruption: lessons learned from COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine with Mariusz Pomienski, Director of Chambre I, European Court of Auditors and Hubertus Gay, Senior Agricultural Policy Analyst, OECD
16:30 – 17:00 MODERATED CONVERSATION: The next moon-shot? Can biotech innovations fuel our journey to a Net-Zero agri-food system? with Jesper Packert Pedersen, Director of Global External Affairs, Christian Hansen and Michael Minter, Future Foods Program Director, CONCITO Thinktank
17:00 – 17:15 Closing remarks by CEO Lars Sandahl Sørensen, Confederation of Danish Industry
17:15 – 18:00 Networking & refreshments
This event is part of Think Tank EUROPA’s Biosolutions 2030 – Towards a paradigm shift in European agricultural and food policy project and is financed by Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF22SA0080353).
