CropWorld Global 2013 To Focus On Innovation In Agriculture

CropWorld Global 2013, the annual agricultural industry event run by UBM Live, will focus exclusively on helping the industry to innovate — through its ‘planting the seeds of innovation’ campaign. The new approach better reflects macroeconomic factors and follows the commissioning of extensive research and the results of recommendations taken from the leaders of the world’s largest crop producers and influential bodies – including Bayer Crop Sciences, DuPont Crop Protection, Unilever, Lindsay Irrigation and the Food and Environment Research Agency.

The independently commissioned research indicated that leading companies in the crop production market are refocusing business objectives towards innovation in crop science, water management and the supply chain so that globally the industry can address the challenges of sustainable food supply both now and in the future.

Currently, some 35 countries require external assistance with feeding their populations, and over the next 10-years food is forecast to become 30% more expensive, with the worldwide demand requiring production to rise 50% by 2030 — yet despite this, 30% of food produced globally is wasted and in order for the industry to make more food available on the population’s plates, an evolution in techniques is required.

Collectively, population growth, coupled with concerns around climate change and a shrinking land mass available for arable production means that most of the required increases in food production will have to come through innovative ways to increase crop yield and intensification.

In response, this year’s two-day event (including exhibition and forum) is gathering thousands of executives from more than 75 countries to come together and discuss how companies can look to utilize new approaches to achieve the industry’s most pressing goals, including: ‘decreasing the yield gap’, ‘increasing supply’, ‘developing sustainable crops’, ‘reducing water and waste issues’, and implementing a ‘responsible supply chain.

Through a bespoke combination of plenary sessions, panel discussions and case studies, an international line-up of speakers will delve into the political, commercial and technical topics ranging from the impact of regulatory changes to assessing modern plant breeding and soil management techniques.

Terri D'Elia, Exhibition Director at CropWorld Global, added: “Providing safe, sustainable and adequate amounts of food globally is one of the greatest challenges to international food producers, scientists and governments today. After speaking with the global agricultural industry we are using CropWorld 2013 to launch our ‘planting the seeds of innovation’ campaign. Essentially, we are now acting as a central hub around which industry, government and related companies can meet, share knowledge and contacts in order to propagate the spread of beneficial innovations. Already the global industry has voiced its support for our ambitious objectives with exhibitors from agrochemical manufacturers and distributors, seed and crop producers, biotech companies, research and manufacturing organisations, and universities looking to collaborate with top-level decision makers and professionals.”

The event is taking place in the Netherlands (the world’s second largest agricultural exporter) October 29-30 at the Amsterdam RAI. Four vertical-specific, modular conferences will take place over two-days examining the regulatory and industry implications across ‘water and irrigation,’ ‘crop science,’ ‘supply chain,’ and ‘R&D.’