LINDAU, Germany, June 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- A record number of
65 laureates and over 650 young scientists are meeting in
Germany to bridge the scientific
disciplines of physiology and medicine, physics and chemistry and
mark the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. This morning, Mars,
Incorporated and more than 100 leading young scientists addressed
the topic of "Feeding the 9.6 Billion" in an interactive panel
discussion and Q&A session. The discussion aimed to confront
the uncertainty surrounding how the world will sustainably feed an
additional two billion people by 2050.
More than six decades after the Green Revolution, malnutrition
still affects vast parts of the world and, according to the UN Food
and Agriculture Organization, almost 800 million people worldwide
are undernourished. With the global population predicted to rise to
between 9 and 10 billion by 2050, we face an increasingly uncertain
future that demands a coordinated response from all sectors and
disciplines.
Steven Chu, who was awarded the
Nobel prize in 1997, served as the US Secretary of Energy in the
first Obama administration. During the panel discussion Chu pointed
out the need to recognize the link between agriculture and climate.
According to Chu, "the food system is one of the greatest
contributors to climate change and will also be one of its
greatest victims. But agriculture can mitigate worsening climatic
stresses if sustainable practices are adopted at scale." Chu
currently teaches at Stanford
University, where he is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor
of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular
Physiology.
In a world where an estimated 2 billion people are anaemic,
Mars' Chief Agricultural Officer Howard-Yana Shapiro spoke during
the discussion about the need to look beyond calories:
"undernourishment is really just the tip of the iceberg.
Deficiencies in nutrients like iron, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin
A, affect huge numbers of people around the world and lead to
physical and cognitive stunting." Shapiro leads the African Orphan
Crops Consortium, a multi-sector partnership that is sequencing the
genomes of 101 orphan crops in order to improve their yield,
nutrient content and climatic resilience. By using traditional
breeding methods and making all its data publicly accessible, the
consortium wants to put superior cultivars in the hands of
smallholder farmers and sustainably address malnutrition in
Africa.
Tomorrow, Shapiro will give a presentation to almost 130 young
scientists on the African Orphan Crops Consortium and the role
orphan crops could play in unlocking food and nutritional security
in Africa. He will also raise the
topic of aflatoxin and look to the young researchers—the next
generation of science—for their support in helping solve this
looming global food safety issue.
This is the ninth year of Mars, Incorporated's partnership with
the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. It also marks the fifth annual
panel that Mars has hosted, with the aim to foster discussions
across disciplines to capture a wide range of perspectives on some
of the critical issues of our time. Mars also supports young
researchers to participate at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
and collaborates with Nature Publishing Group (NPG) to make the
dialogue at Lindau accessible to a global scientific audience.
About Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated is a
private, family-owned business with more than a century of history
and some of the best-loved brands in the world including
M&M'S®, PEDIGREE®, DOUBLEMINT® and UNCLE BEN'S®. Headquartered
in McLean, VA, Mars has more than
$33 billion in sales from six diverse
business segments: Petcare, Chocolate, Wrigley, Food, Drinks and
Symbioscience. More than 75,000 Associates across 73 countries are
united by the company's Five Principles: Quality, Efficiency,
Responsibility, Mutuality and Freedom and strive every day to
create relationships with stakeholders that deliver growth we are
proud of as a company.
For more information about Mars, Incorporated, please visit
www.mars.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
YouTube.
About the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
Once every
year, some dozens of Nobel Laureates convene at Lindau to meet the
next generation of leading scientists: undergraduates, PhD
students, and post-doc researchers from all over the world. The
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings foster the exchange among scientists
of different generations, cultures, and disciplines. The 65th
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (28 June – 3
July 2015) is dedicated to interdisciplinary scientific
exchange. 65 Nobel Laureates participate in the 65th Lindau
Meeting, among them also Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi and
Nobel Literature Laureate Wole Soyinka. They will be joined by more
than 650 young participants from 88 countries. The Lindau Meetings
are jointly organised by two institutions – the council and the
foundation. More information: www.lindau-nobel.org
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