Soil Association annual conference 2012
Facing the future: Innovation in food and farming
02 March, London
Opening address - Helen Browning, Chief Executive of the Soil Association
Facing the Future: What role can innovation play? - Economist Ann Pettifor
Facing the Future: What role can innovation play? - Economist Ann Pettifor, author of The Real World Economic Outlook and a Fellow of the new economics foundation (nef), looks at the role of innovation in a resource-constrained future, and what business models and market structures might be needed for a lower-growth, sustainable economy
Professor Hans Herren, President of the Millennium Institute
Phil Bloomer, Director of Policy and Campaigns for OXFAM
Joanna Blythman discusses her new book, What to Eat, with Soil Association Deputy Director, Roger Mortlock
Closing remarks - Helen Browning, Chief Executive of the Soil Association
Conference image gallery
The Soil Association’s Conference 2012 celebrated innovation in food and farming today. We explored this through the two major themes of our strategy: Facing the Future, which explores the exciting scientific and technical progress being made in organic and low-input farming systems; and Good Food for All, which contributes to the important debate about food, public health and social justice.
The future of our food is in flux. According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture (UNFAO) special Rapporteur, Olivier de Schutter, ‘keeping blindly on the track of industrial agriculture is clearly unsustainable.’ If this is the case, then we need to galvanize the finest thinkers, technologists, scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs and teachers to develop new and sustainable ways of feeding a growing world population now and in the future.
In addition, the growing challenge of diet-related ill-health, in the UK and internationally, means that we need to explore the relationship between food production and its consumption. With a world that has approximately 1 billion people malnourished and 1 billion obese, there is a powerful case for bringing public health and nutritional expertise to the farming and food production table, to innovate joined-up solutions for our food future.
For general conference queries, please contact Laura Andrews, Events Co-ordinator, on 0117 987 4586 or landrews@soilassociation.org.
Organic lunch
We wish to thank the organic producers who provided lunch for our delegates on the day. Find out more about them...
Sponsors
The Soil Association 2012 conference is kindly supported by:
Lead sponsor
Feature sponsors
Exhibitor sponsors
Supporter sponsors
