InfoAgrar the agricultural information and documentation service of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), is organizing a symposium on 13 October 2005 at the Conference Center of Hotel Novotel Bern Expo in Berne (Guisanplatz), Switzerland in celebration of World Food Day on 16 October 2005.
Entitled "Poor health, food insecurity and poverty - how to break a vicious circle," the symposium aims to help address the challenge of "looking at food in a holistic manner rather than from a narrow agronomic perspective."
It aims to identify interactions between diseases and food insecurity in developing countries, and present and discuss strategies and projects to reduce poverty by successfully combining all aspects of health and agriculture. The symposium also aims to facilitate networking among representatives of the agricultural and health sectors.
World Food Day has been held annually since 1981 to increase the awareness of the general public of the struggle against poverty and hunger throughout the world. In this context, the symposium will focus discussions on the status and relationship of health and food security in developing countries, particularly the influence of health conditions in agricultural production systems of rural communities and vice versa, strategies to increase the suitability of agricultural production systems in areas strongly affected by HIV/AIDS, loss of agricultural knowledge, and strategies of rural communities in dealing with diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.
International development and humanitarian aid professionals working in the agriculture or health sector, including policy makers, project staff, researchers and other interested individuals and institutions, especially from Africa and Southeast Asia are welcome to attend. For more information, visit http://www.infoagrar.ch/symposium2005/
