Event

FFA Public Lecture: Successes in Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean

Event Date(s): 09/05/2018

Location: UWI St. Augustine, Sir Frank Stockdale Building, Lecture Room B


The Faculty of Food and Agriculture (FFA) presents a Public Lecture on the topic, Successes in Food and Nutrition Security in Latin America and the Caribbean with guest speaker, Professor Emeritus Michael T. Clegg, University of California.

The Public Lecture takes place at 5pm.

To RSVP, please contact, Sabrina Ragoo at Sabrina.ragoo@sta.uwi.edu or call 662-2002 ext. 83954. There will also be a Book Launch of Challenges and Opportunities for Food and Nutrition Security in the Americas. The book has country chapters from the nations of the Americas. The Caribbean chapter was co-authored by Dr. Mark Wuddivira (FFA), Dr. Vidya de Gannes (FFA), Prof. Gerrit Meerdink (formerly in Faculty of Engineering), Ms. Nequesha Dalrymple (FFA) and Ms. Shantelle Henry (FFA).

Click here for more Guest Speaker, Professor Emeritus Michael T. Clegg’s bio.

About the Public Lecture

This Public Lecture is a unique occasion to:

  • Present key success stories of how countries in the Americas overcame challenges to improve their food and nutrition security levels
  • Highlight lessons that Trinidad and Tobago can learn, based on these shared experiences
  • Bring together key stakeholders from the health, education, trade, environment and agricultural sectors to share in their own best practices, observations of global, regional and national trends and identify ways to coordinate activities in strategic areas.
About the book Challenges and Opportunities for Food and Nutrition Security in the Americas
 
The book contains chapters assessing the food and nutrition security outlook for countries in the Americas, each authored by national experts. The book provides a forward looking and comprehensive picture of the future prospects for food and nutrition security in the Americas. Each country chapter deals with topics ranging from the status of national agricultural research and education systems, areas of scientific and technological opportunity, environmental constraints, nutrition and health status and policy challenges. The assessments should be of value to both national and regional policy makers. The book is therefore of great significance to the Faculty’s mandate of human capacity development in Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security in the Caribbean region. 

Background on the Faculty’s work on the topic of Food and Nutrition Security:

The current economic recession in Trinidad and Tobago is creating significant challenges in the country’s agricultural and food sectors.  Among the most pressing issues that hinder the sectors are:

  1. Poor food safety standards
  2. Lack of institutional coordination across sectors
  3. Insufficient human and capital investment
  4. Low levels of competitiveness and innovation
  5. And Poor agricultural practices.  All these factors result in an overall low level of food and nutrition security (FNS). 

While food, in terms of calories, is generally in abundant supply for the majority of households, most of what we eat is imported.  Furthermore, based on anecdotal evidence, the share of imported food on the average plate has been increasing over time.  This over-reliance on foreign sources of food weakens our food security and also presents a national security challenge, as well as a burden on foreign exchange availability.   In addition, changing consumer tastes and preferences, poor lifestyle choices and high incidence of overweight and obesity (relative to global averages) has led to extremely high levels of chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs).  This worsening food and nutrition status will no doubt be detrimental to our development in the long term.

Admission:Free, RSVP required

Open to: | General Public | Staff | Student | Alumni |


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