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> Opening Session
> Session 1 : The future of rural areas in an urbanizing world
> Session 2 : The future of agriculture in a globalizing world
> Session 3 : Environmental challenges to agricultural development and food security
> Session 4 : Frontiers of science for agriculture in the 21st century
> Session 5 : Targeting and delivering research for marginal areas and marginalized people
> Session 6 : Policy options for the future
Agenda : The future of rural areas in an urbanizing world
| Moderators: Tie Li, Prabhu Pingali |
The persistence of hunger in the developing world means that ensuring adequate and nutritious food for the population will remain the principal challenge facing policy makers in many developing countries in the years to come. However, the rapid transformation of diets and the changes in food systems at all levels (production, processing and distribution/retail) pose a number of important additional challenges to food security, nutrition and health policy in the developing countries.
Urbanization is likely to increase the "effective demand" for food safety and quality. In developing countries, the informal sector is often a significant producer, processor, distributor and preparer of food and food products (e.g. street foods). On one hand, there is a need for greater regulation and food safety control. On the other, public systems to ensure food quality and safety suffer from lack of organization and adequate funding. When imposing standards that are difficult and costly to achieve, policy makers need to be wary of the implications for low-income food producers, sellers and consumers. |
| Potential questions to be addressed : |
How does the structural transformation of food systems, including the rapid emergence of vertically co-ordinated chains, change the analytical task and the nature of food policy?
What is the public sector role in providing incentives and managerial support to small producers adapting to dynamic food chain systems, increasingly dominated by large volume, vertically coordinating supermarkets?
How can the public sector contribute to ensuring that small producers adversely affected by the increased vertical co-ordination of food chains, have viable alternative livelihoods?
How can policy effectively deal with the dual burden of the co-existence of undernourishment and overnourishment within the same society
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