K+S discuss securing sustainable food at the AXICA Congress and Convention Centre in Berlin

Many young people in our country know only very little about agriculture. Not even this year’s exceptionally dry summer in Germany will have made it clear just how vulnerable our nutritional basis is. That is different in many developing countries, where people struggle almost on a daily basis to secure adequate supplies of grain and vegetables. Meat and dairy products are still frequently seen as a luxury in rural areas. And at first glance, future prospects are not exactly a source of hope.

The challenges are demanding: the global population continues to grow – according to United Nations’ estimates, to a total of about 10 billion people in the next 30 years. To exacerbate the situation even further, this population growth will be almost exclusively in Africa. At the same time, natural production conditions for food are deteriorating in many parts of the world. For example, for some time now karstification, salinisation, and urbanisation are resulting in the loss of 10 million ha. of agricultural land every year. And Africa is disproportionately affected by these losses. In the last 50 years alone, fertile areas the size of France 650 000 km²) have been transformed into barren steppes and deserts.

In view of these menacing findings, the company K+S Aktiengesellschaft in cooperation with the Handelsblatt Research Institute, has compiled the most important facts and arguments about “World Nutrition” on a scientific basis. The central question is how adequate supplies of food can be secured in future for growing populations in emerging and developing countries, while areas of agricultural land continue to shrink.

The presentation is in the form of a fact book presented by Prof. Bert Rürup, President of the Handelsblatt Research Institute and Chief Economist of the the Handelsblatt at this year’s FUTURE FOOD FORUM. The explanation of complex content using graphics, provides a broad readership with easy access to the subject matter. Although information graphics and plausible statistics alone cannot cover the whole issue of world nutrition exhaustively, they do provide a serious basis for a fruitful discussion about practical solutions.

Creative ideas and sustainable strategies for ensuring world food production provide the central focus for the day; these issues will be discussed in an active dialogue with Handelsblatt editors and will be vividly illustrated with multimedia elements.

Further keynote speakers will be Dr. Gerd Müller, German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Dr. Tassos Haniotis, Director of Strategy, Simplification and Policy Analysis at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as Arif Husain, Chief Economist and Head of Analysis and Trends in food safety at the World Food Program of the United Nations.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldfertilizer.com/special-reports/08102018/ks-discuss-securing-sustainable-food-at-the-axica-congress-and-convention-centre-in-berlin/