IIED is in the process of developing a new strategy for the next 10 years. As part of this process we are organising a number of seminars on key topics relevant to our strategy, including food and agriculture. Demand for food is expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2030, putting further pressure on land and water resources.

 

Also by 2030, over 80 per cent of the world’s 4.8 billion middle class is projected to be living in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Effective strategy for sustainable development requires foresight, which in turn requires an understanding of global megaforces. The scale of increase needed in food production globally will depend significantly on how those megaforces are identified, prepared for, and managed; forces including increases in meat consumption, biofuel policy, waste between field and fork, and over-consumption.

 

Agricultural research and technology play an important role in this process, including both undertaking foresight and using it to inform research priorities and strategies. This seminar brings a panel of three experts together to discuss how to identify those food and agricultural megaforces and how countries, communities and businesses can prepare for the challenges ahead.

 

Robin Bourgeois is an Agricultural Economist and is currently Senior Foresight and Development
Policies Expert at the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR). His areas of research include
foresight, institutional change, inequality and poverty in rural development, collective decisionmaking
in the elaboration of public policies, agro-food systems, research and technology transfer.
Robin is in charge of strengthening the role of GFAR in foresight and providing an open and multistakeholder
space for dialogue and action on the future challenges for agricultural research for
better development impact (see Global Foresight Hub for details).

 

Ben Wielgus has been a member of KPMG’s sustainability advisory group for almost 10 years. He
currently heads the sustainability strategy team. During his time at KPMG, he has worked with a
wide range of clients helping them understand and respond to the evolving sustainability agenda.
Ben specialises in helping organisations understand how the risks and opportunities from
sustainability megatrends can affect an organisation’s overall business strategy, working with them
to build suitable governance and embed responses to the challenges. He is currently working with
three food and agriculture businesses to help them improve their articulation of why and how
sustainability matters to them and implement a programme of activities to respond. Ben is
contributed to the Megaforces report of KPMG.

 

Camilla Toulmin is Director of IIED. An economist by training with a doctorate from Oxford
University, Camilla has worked mainly in Africa combining field research, policy analysis and
advocacy to understand how environmental, economic and political change impact on people’s lives,
and how policy reform can bring real change on the ground. She has worked with people at many
different levels from farmers and researchers, to national governments, NGOs, donor agencies and
international bodies. IIED’s strategy for 2009-14 focuses on four principal goals that bring together
the institute’s diverse areas of work on climate change, human settlements, natural resources, and
sustainable markets. Camilla was member of the lead expert group for the foresight project “The
Future of Food and Farming”