Tackling the Global Food Crisis: Sustainable Agrifood Systems

This is the second course in a two-part series by Queen’s University Belfast looking at issues concerning the maintenance and enhancement of global food supplies, whilst improving human wellbeing in the developed and developing world. This course will focus on threats to global food security and the challenges that need to be overcome, in order to maintain healthy and sustainable food supplies. The course will begin by looking at global food insecurity and the potential consequences for human health. Examining links between food insecurity and the rising tide of metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases around the globe, it will demonstrate how the issue is particularly relevant in the developed world. It will continue on to examine threats to global food security posed by parasites, which undermine the health of animals and plants, damaging food production systems globally. Having considered threats to global food security the course will look at approaches to sustaining healthy agri-food systems such as the benefits of applied genetics for fisheries management and aquaculture. The course will conclude by considering societal concerns around animal welfare, as pressure builds to increase production intensity whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Using cutting edge research undertaken by the Institute of Global Food Security (IGFS) the course will illustrate how aspects of the global food crisis might be addressed, in order to sustain and manage healthy food systems into the future. The course is led by Professor Chris Elliott, who wrote the UK government review on the recent horsemeat scandal. To find out more, read Chris’s post for our blog: “The many faces of the global food crisis.” Please note that the first course in this series, Tackling the Global Food Crisis: Supply Chain Integrity is NOT a pre-requisite for taking this course.

• Chris Elliott