News Releases

Feeding the nine billion

For Release Upon Receipt - September 17, 2014

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – The United Nations estimates that by 2050, the global population will exceed nine billion. With nearly one billion worldwide who are currently starving (Food and Agriculture Organisation), and that number is increasing, what will the food situation be in the next three decades? 

You can discuss this issue on September 17, 2014, as the Faculty of Food and Agriculture of The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine, hosts Professor Elkana Shmuel Wolf, who will deliver a public lecture during his visit to The UWI from September 13-19, 2014.  

Professor Elkana Shmuel Wolf is Professor of Plant Physiology - Vigevani Chair in Agriculture, as well as Dean of the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His lecture will focus on “Food Security in the 21st Century”.  

Professor Wolf’s research area of interest at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem centres on the study of the factors affecting the productivity, yield accumulation and quality of vegetable and field crops; seed development; environmental effect on the viability of seeds; the mechanisms involved in the process of seed germination, with an emphasis on the effect of stressful conditions, and the development of technologies for more efficient hybrid seed production. He has authored and co-authored numerous academic publications over a period of 19 years. 

The event takes place at Lecture Theatre B, Sir Frank Stockdale Building, The UWI, St. Augustine Campus, from 5pm-8pm. The lecture is open to all interested persons.  

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Notes to the editor 

More about Professor Shmuel

Prof. Shmuel (Shmulik) Wolf is the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture. He received his B.Sc. in Agriculture, his M.Sc. in Field and Vegetable Crops and his Ph.D. Plant Physiology in The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He did his PhD in Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis and spent time there as a visiting professor. Professor Wolf joined the faculty as a lecturer in 1990. His research interests include studying the factors affecting the productivity and yield accumulation of vegetables and field crops. He served as the Director of the Otto Warburg Minerva Center for Agricultural Biotechnology from 2002 to 2009, and as a Vice-Dean for Research from 2008 to 2012. Professor Wolf received his professorship in 2007 and became Dean of the Faculty in July 2013. 

About The UWI

Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged, regional University with well over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with four campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Open Campus. The UWI has faculty and students from more than 40 countries and collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences. UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation. Website: www.uwi.edu 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

 

 

 

 

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