Recently, when agricultural leaders and stakeholders gathered in Paris for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Meeting - the first such assembly since 1998 - a critical question was posed to a roundtable of agriculture ministers, organizations and corporate leaders: "What actions are you prioritizing to prepare the food and agriculture system for the needs of a rapidly changing world?"

Of course, that is the question that all of us, inside and outside of agriculture, must answer sooner rather than later as "the global food and agriculture system will have to provide sustainably for billions more people and meet greater demands on quality, affordability and availability. Farming will be competing with other sectors for land, water and investment, while climate change adds new pressures," an OECD paper stated in outlining the challenges.

The importance of agriculture in the scheme of government stability was underscored this week in a meeting between U.S. Secretary of  State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Mahmoud Qureshi. During a joint press conference on CSPAN Secretary Clinton noted that "60

 

to 70 percent of the people of Pakistan rely on agriculture and therefore "we ignore agriculture at our peril". While Secretary Clinton's words that "we ignore agriculture at our peril" may ring a bit ominous and alarmist, she is absolutely right in her assessment.

Eight days and counting to our 2010 Symposium, Closing the Gap: Examining an Alternative Future. The symposium, which will be held on March 17 in Washington, D.C., continues the Global Harvest Initiative's quest to explore and develop specific policies with a global perspective, while having the power to change the way agricultural products are produced and secured.

We expect it to be an exciting day of engaging discussions around the topics of agriculture, hunger, conservation and food security.We've assembled a wonderful group of presenters who will offer their ideas - both from a policy and philosophical perspective - regarding how we address the challenge of feeding the 9 billion people who are expected to populate the planet in 2050. Here's an updated program agenda: 

GHI 2010 Symposium Agenda.

A highlight of this year's Symposium will be the unveiling of a five-part study, which was commissioned by GHI to provide a fact-based blueprint for developing the policies and systems necessary to sustainably meet growing demand. This diverse group of experts provide additional perspective on the difficulty of the challenges ahead, as well as the global consequences of not closing the productivity gap.