By Sierra Dragonetti
Feeding a growing global population while adapting to climate change is one of the defining challenges facing agriculture today. Around the world, farmers, researchers and policymakers are searching for ways to produce more food sustainably while responding to mounting environmental and production challenges.
Those challenges, and the role innovation can play in addressing them, were at the center of the Global Agricultural Biotechnology and Biosafety Symposium, hosted Aug. 2-5 by Michigan State University's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) as part of the 25th anniversary of CANR's International Agricultural Biotechnology, Biosafety and Technology Transfer Short Course.
The symposium brought together nearly 100 participants from 18 countries, representing research, industry, government and farming, to explore how innovation can help address some of agriculture's most pressing challenges.
Yet one message surfaced repeatedly throughout the week: the future of agriculture will depend on more than scientific breakthroughs alone. The ability to share knowledge, build partnerships and strengthen capacity around the world will be just as important as the technologies themselves.
For Karim Maredia, Ph.D., professor, associate dean and director of the World Agriculture Center at MSU, that mission has guided the program for more than two decades.
Source : msu.edu