Industry events
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by Tom Blacker, Milling and Grain
n Tuesday October 10, 2017, in Grosvenor Square, central London, the inaugural Financial Times – Future of Agriculture conference to engage the high-level and strategic high-level executives in the agriculture industry. The international array of attendees was drawn from all areas of agriculture and food industries, market trading, organisations and industry services such as legal and insurance firms. The conference programme’s welcome letter given by James Gunnell, Managing Director of The Financial Times. Gunnell highlighted advances in technology in the ‘Agricultural Internet of Things’ and ‘Precision Farming’. Despite being buzzwords of the day, these turned into themes discussed at length throughout the day with divergent opinions on solutions and predictions made by many of the speakers. The opening speech was from the conference’s Co-Chair Andrew Jack, Head of Curated Content, Financial Times who was happy to see a good amount of people and looked forward to the day’s agenda, whilst introducing the Keynote speaker. The Keynote address was made by Daniel J. Gustafson, Deputy-Director General of the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation. He opened with detailing the goals of Agenda 2030 to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), which in brief are: 116 | January 2018 - Milling and Grain
1) To reduce poverty worldwide. 2) To reduce hunger and create sustainable food production Gustafson also added that the equally important goal of 50 percent more food production is set as a target by the UNFAO 2050 on top of these two goals. Even though Gustafson stressed these large challenges, he was optimistic and gave an account of his experience and interesting examples from around the world. Gustafson highlighted how unreported stories of success in agricultural production are not being made well known. For example, between 1960-2015, the agricultural production doubled worldwide. Another example is how between 1997 to 2014 in Brazil, there was a 280 percent yield increase and a 320 percent production increase of all food and India doubled its yield and production of agriculture. Gustafson went on to analyse the role of macro-economic