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‘Plant breeders without borders’ - Part of the solution to world food security?


Australia
August 8, 2011

Source: The Crawford Fund

As the world struggles to feed its ever-increasing population, a young plant breeder from Victoria has come up with an innovative idea to support global food security in the years to come.

‘Plant breeders without borders’ is the brainchild of Victorian plant breeder Anthony Leddin who is one of 12 young scientists to receive support to attend the Crawford Fund 2011 international conference titled “The Supermarket Revolution: Good, Bay, Ugly for the World’s Farmers, Consumers and Retailers?” being held in Parliament House, Canberra from 14 to 16 August.

“The idea is similar to ‘Doctors without borders’ - where plant breeders would volunteer to work overseas on specific projects where they could train local plant scientists and share their insights and knowledge with the developing world,” Mr Leddin said.

“There’s also the potential for undergraduate plant breeding students to take part in these projects – where they can be mentored by a senior plant breeder on site. To make the projects sustainable, the plant breeders would also train people on the ground so that their work can be carried on after they leave the project to return home,” he said.

“There’s a need for the world to double its food production by 2050 to feed the estimated population of 9 billion. Plant breeding is one way of doing this by breeding crops with higher yield, greater disease resistance and greater storage capabilities to decrease the amount of wastage. The problem is that there’s a real shortage of plant breeders around the world,” he said.
Crawford Fund Executive Director, Dr Denis Blight, believes Mr Leddin’s idea should be explored.

“We support the concept he has and are keen to see how such mentoring efforts might become part of a broader program,” Dr Blight said.

While the current debate around supermarkets in Australia is focussing on their pricing policies, the issues related to the so-called ‘supermarket revolution’ are much broader both in Australia and in the developing world.

“Very much related to food security, our conference will have key international and Australian specialists considering the extent to which the growing significance of supermarkets and a range of issues related to the marketing chain are impacting consumers, producers and traders - what the issues are and what they mean for world food supply, trade, security and scarcity,” said Dr Blight.

Speakers at this year’s event include:

  • President Haruhiko Kuroda of the Asian Development Bank
  • Professor Thomas Reardon from Michigan State University who is the leading global expert in links between agrifood industry transformation and food security in Asia;
  • Professor Allan Fels AO, the former chair of the ACCC;
  • Mr John Glover from Metro Cash and Carry Asia who has over 38 years in the retail industry and spent the past 18 years in the Asian market working for two major global retailers;
  • Dr David McKinna who is considered one of Australia’s preeminent opinion makers on agrifood issues.


Published: August 11, 2011

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