One Just World forum: Will the world be able to feed itself in 2050?
Food security and the developing world
Wednesday
10 September 2008
Adelaide Town Hall, auditorium, 128 King William Street, Adelaide
Jointly-presented
by World Vision Australia, AusAID, International Women's Development
Agency
and supported by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre at UniSA
Papers available:
Farhad Mazhar, MD of UBINIG, Bangladesh (Policy Research for Development Alternative) FULL PAPER (pdf file 147KB) Visual presentation (pdf file 4Mb)
Sophia Murphy, Senior Advisor, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis, USA FULL PAPER (pdf file 29kb)
Audio transcript (unedited) 33.5 MB mp3 format - To be broadcast on Radio Adelaide 101.5FM on Public Domain program 25 January
Poverty explains why more than 800 million people are chronically hungry and up to 2 billion people lack food security. In most developing countries, 70% or more of the population live in rural areas. In many places, the absence of land ownership gives little incentive to poor farmers to improve the land. Increased bio-fuel farming, dramatic increases in oil prices, global population growth, climate change, and growing consumer demand in China and India have pushed up the price of grain. Food riots have recently taken place in many countries and poor women, who are responsible for producing the majority of the world's food, are struggling to feed themselves and their families.
This forum will update you on the current state of world food security and explore some of the big challenges and options in building a secure, equitable, sustainable global food system. What is needed to overcome the current crisis and ensure global food security for future generations? What will be the impact of the looming energy crisis on food supply, especially in developing countries? How should we address the profound inequalities in land access that help perpetuate poverty? How can we best ensure space for traditional ecological farming practices? What changes are needed in global agriculture and trade arrangements? In food aid systems? And do we also need to tackle the cultural underpinnings that sustain hunger in the midst of plenty?
Featuring expert speakers
- Rev Tim Costello, CEO, World Vision Australia
- Farhad Mazhar, MD of UBINIG, Bangladesh (Policy Research for Development Alternative)
- Sophia Murphy, Senior Advisor, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis, USA
Chair: Professor Pal Ahluwalia, Pro Vice Chancellor, Division of Education Arts and Social Sciences
Information on the One Just World series may be found on their web site.
Biographies
Tim
Costello is recognised as one of Australia's leading voices on
social justice issues, and since becoming CEO of World Vision Australia in
2004, has been instrumental in ensuring that the issues surrounding global
poverty are placed on the national agenda.
His passion for justice and for helping to alleviate the suffering of
poor communities in the developing world quickly became evident when the
devastating Asia tsunami struck on Boxing Day, 2004. The leadership he
showed at the time helped to inspire an unprecedented outpouring of
generosity from the Australian public, with World Vision Australia raising
more than $100 million for tsunami relief. Tim has also played a
prominent role in the Make Poverty History campaign and in April 2008, he
chaired the Strengthening Communities, Supporting Families and Social
Inclusion Committee of the Australian Government's 2020 Summit in Canberra.
Prior to joining World Vision Australia, Tim served as Minister at the
Collins Street Baptist Church in Melbourne, and as Executive Director of
Urban Seed, a Christian not-for-profit outreach service for the urban poor.
Between 1999 and 2002, he was also National President of the Baptist Union
of Australia.
In 2004, Tim was named Victorian of the Year; in June 2005 he was made an
Officer of the Order of Australia (AO); and in 2006 was named Victorian
Australian of the Year.
Farhad Mazhar,
MD of UBINIG, Bangladesh (Policy Research for Development Alternative)
FULL PAPER
(pdf file 147KB)
Farhad Mazhar is a leading member of Bangladesh's Nayakrishi Andolon (New Agricultural Movement), which practises and promotes biodiversity-based ecological agriculture. He is also managing director of the Dhaka-based research organization UBINIG, or Policy Research for Development Alternatives. The organization works with communities to strengthen popular struggle for social change and serve the research and informational needs of grassroots movements of women, farmers and workers. UBINIG campaigns on issues of popular concern in Bangladesh, including structural adjustment policies, agrarian and ecological issues including land reform and food security, export-oriented industrialization, marginalization of women and the poor majority in the rural areas, population control, health service delivery structure, trade union issues and issues of national health and drug policies. UBINIG publishes Chinta, a Bengali journal on social change and ecological issues and runs the only feminist bookstore in Bangladesh.
Sophia Murphy, Senior
Advisor, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in
Minneapolis, USA FULL PAPER
(pdf file 29kb)
Sophia Murphy is a consultant and senior advisor to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Global Governance Program. Her work is focused on food security, agricultural trade rules, U.S. trade and agriculture policy and the interests of developing countries in the multilateral trade system. Sophia has published many reports and articles, including analysis of the effects of international trade rules on development and food security, the impact of corporate concentration in the global food system, a critique of U.S. food aid programs, and trade and poverty-related issues in the global biofuels sector. Sophia joined the Institute in 1997, coming from Geneva, where she had worked for two years with the United Nations Nongovernmental Liaison Service. Before that, she worked as a policy officer with the Canadian Council for International Cooperation in Ottawa. Sophia has a degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and a master's from the London School of Economics.
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While the views presented by speakers within the Hawke Centre public
program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University
of South Australia or The Hawke Centre, they are presented in the interest
of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of:
strengthening our democracy - valuing our cultural diversity - and building
our future.