JRI/Redcliffe College Environment day Conference: Food Futures
9.30am – 4.30pm, Saturday 6 March 2010
After months in the planning the JRI/Redcliffe College Environment day Conference: Food Futures finally came to fruition. Around 70 people attended a highly successful day. This page now gives reports on the day which was organised in partnership with Redcliffe College, CMS and the Agricultural Christian Fellowship. The meeting was chaired by Revd. Margot Hodson. The picture shows (l. to r.): Mike Rayner, Ruth Valerio, Margot Hodson (Chair), Patrick Mulvaney and Andy Kingston-Smith (the main organiser for Redcliffe College)
Main Speakers
What the Bible says about food Rev Dr Mike Rayner (British Heart Foundation, Oxford) took us on an extended tour of the Bible looking at all aspects of the Bible and food. He even tried out some food on the conference attendees! There was a an American “cheese” which came out of a can, and bore little likeness to real cheese. And then a marvellous cake that Mike had baked specially for the conference- much better than the “cheese”.
How will farmers, herders and fisherfolk do it? Patrick Mulvaney (Chair of UK Food Group) is an optimist. He looked at the problems of world agriculture, and whether we would be able to feed the predicted 9 billion people by the middle of the century in a time of climate change and resource depletion. Patrick thinks we can by using a more ecological approach to farming. The PowerPoint for Patrick’s talk is now available.
Ethical food Ruth Valerio (author of ‘L is for Lifestyle’) began by explaining to us her virtues ethics. She believes that these are important in under-girding our decisions on the sort of food we eat. Once she had established her ethical basis then she went on the consider the practical outworking of the ethics in what we should buy and what we should eat.
Over coffee we had a Coffee House session with contributions from three Redcliffe College students, looking at food issues in the developing world. Sir John Houghton gave us a short update on climate change after Copenhagen, and his recent battles with the sceptics. We had afternoon workshops on Human Population and Food; Climate Change and Agriculture; Aid and Development – missiological considerations; How then do we eat? – the practical response; and Models of Agricultural Production – how to feed the world sustainably.
A full report of the conference, including detailed accounts of the three key not speakers’ talks is available at: http://www.jri.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/JRINewsletterJune10.pdf