Despite significant technological and productive advances in agriculture, recent estimates indicate that 1.5 billion individuals experience food insecurity, of which 800 million have no access to minimal caloric intakes. Current mode of food production requires massive utilization of natural resources such as water, land and fossil fuels, which are limited, scarce and irreplaceable. While the world looks forward to feeding 9 billion people in 2050, one-third of global food produced for human consumption, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons is lost or wasted annually. Projecting past and current agricultural practices into the future offers a recipe for failure.
In this respect, The Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences at Notre Dame University – Louaize in collaboration with Dr. Patrick Cortbaoui Academic Associate and Project Manager from the McGill Institute for Global Food Security, presented a seminar on the 20th of September. Dr. Cortbaoui provided an overview of new agricultural framework, new farming philosophy, resource-use efficiency in value chains and sustainable processing technologies and discussed how to rethink the global food and nutrition security for many generations to come.
Food Security and Sustainability issues are within the Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences academic strategy; the course FQM 200: Food Security and Sustainability was added to the list of Liberal Art Curriculum (LAC) as part of the Citizenship LAC group. This course will be offered for the first time in spring semester 2017.
The audience gathered NDU students, staff and faculty members interested in food sustainability, food security, food loss and waste management.