ISPP Task Force on Global Food Security

 Contents:

• Background
• Presentations at ICPP98
• The task force
• First meeting

At the 7th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP98), Edinburgh, August 1998, a Special Public Meeting was convened on

Global Food Security: The Role for Plant Pathology

The Organizer, W. Clive James, provided the following background brief:

The enormity of the problem

During the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996, Heads of States agreed to halve the number of hungry people by 2015. Today there are 800 million, almost all of them in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

 Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked and the solution does not rely on one factor, but on an interrelated complex of factors that includes population, technology, policy and social changes.

• World population is 5.8 billion
• 80% live in developing countries, where the population increases 1.9% per year
• More than 800 million people do not have adequate food
• 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day
• 50% of poor people live in Asia, 25% in Africa, 12% in Latin America
• Most poor people live in areas where the land is marginal and ecosystems are fragile
• Global food production is 5 billion tons per annum

• Crop diseases, pests and weeds reduce production by at least one-third, despite the use of pesticides worth $32 billion
• Crop diseases alone reduce production by more than 10%
• For example, potato blight, the disease that caused the Irish famine in 1845, is again becoming prevalent

 To address this question, five distinguished scientists addressed different aspects of the issue:

Clive JAMES (Chairman, International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications)
Global Food Security

Norman BORLAUG (Nobel Peace Laureate, Mexico)
Food security, plant pathology and quarantine

Cyrus NDIRITU (Director, Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute)
Human capital investment in plant pathology: a view from the South

Robert WILLIAMS (Deputy Director General, CAB International)
Public-private sector partnerships in plant pathology that will contribute to food security

Paul TENG (International Rice Research Institute, Philippines)
Practising plant pathology in changing agricultural systems

Abstracts have been archived at:

http://www.bspp.org.uk/icpp98/toc_global.html

These presentations were followed by a public discussion, during which Paul Teng (International Rice Research Institute, Philippines) and David Thurston (Cornell University, USA) issued the challenge to the International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP) to

• establish an ISPP Task Force on Global Food Security

The challenge issued at ICPP98 to establish an ISPP Task Force on Global Food Security has been taken up by the Executive Committee of the ISPP.

The function of such a Task Force is potentially so demanding and open-ended that its activities must be sharply focused if tangible results are to be achieved by an organization with limited resources such as ISPP. ISPP Executive therefore proposes to proceed according to the following principles:

• ISPP will establish a small Task Force to address initially the nature of the global food security problem, and the principles and modalities whereby plant pathologists may realistically tackle it.
• Attention will be focused on delivering tangible results of demonstrable benefit to global food security.
• A programme will be chosen that can benefit from ISPP's facilitating or coordinating role in relation to existing or planned programmes in plant pathology, rather than from initiation of new work.
• Achievable results are likely to derive from coordinating existing research programmes, or through surveying incidence of damage, or through supporting extension or outreach programmes.
• ISPP's own funds are very limited, so fundraising in support of such action is likely to be one objective.
• The first activity of the Task Force will be to convene a meeting in 1999, to agree a work programme for the following 3 years, with a budget and time schedule.
• The work of the Task Force will be monitored by ISPP Executive Council and reported to the Membership through Councillors. Feedback from the Membership will be encouraged, to guide the future programme.

The Board of the British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP) has undertaken to support ISPP's Task Force initiative, by providing funding for an initial meeting of the Task Force. This reflects a recognition that the Task Force initiative arose at ICPP98, for which BSPP is responsible.

For its first meeting, the ISPP Task Force has linked with a Round Table meeting on:

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE: THE GLOBAL ISSUE

in Bangkok, 13-15 September 1999

(details are on the Web at http://www.apcpa.org/conference.html)

convened by the Asia Pacific Crop Protection Association (APCPA, an industry-sponsored group) and the Global Forum for Agricultural Research (GFAR, a group sponsored by FAO and the World Bank).

ISPP has invited an international group of plant pathologists to be Members of the Task Force, to participate in the first meeting, and to continue to participate in the programme outlined above and to be amplified at the first meeting.

Participation has been confirmed by:

Chris Akem, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Aleppo, Syria
Mike Jeger, British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP), Wageningen, Netherlands
Hajime Kato, Kobe, Japan
Jill Lenné, Natural Resources Institute, Chatham, UK
Emmanuel Moses, Crops Research Institute, Kumasi, Ghana
Chris Mundt, Oregon State University, USA *
Rebecca Nelson, International Potato Center, Lima, Peru *
Peter Scott, International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP), Oxford, UK
CY Shen, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Bangkok, Thailand *
Paul Teng, Monsanto, Manila, Philippines
Nollie Vera Cruz, International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, Philippines *

* Not available for the September meeting.