Food & Nutrition Security – The Biosecurity, Health, Trade Nexus

13-14 December 2021, Canberra

Professor Prabhu Pingali

Founding Director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition and Chair of the Governing Board of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics

Prabhu Pingali is a Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, with joint appointments in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and Department of Global Development, and the Founding Director of the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI). He is also chair of the governing board of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. Prior to joining Cornell, he was the Deputy Director, Agricultural Development Division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, from 2008–May 2013. He was director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Agriculture and Development Economics Division from 2002-2007. In addition, he worked with the CGIAR for 15 years from 1987-2002, first with IRRI in the Philippines and then with CIMMYT in Mexico. Pingali is a member in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and an AAEA Fellow. He has over three decades of experience working with some of the leading international agricultural development organizations as a research economist, development practitioner and senior manager. Pingali has written 13 books and over 120 refereed journal articles and book chapters on food policy.

Food system transformations and biosecurity threats

ABSTRACT

Global food systems have gone through periodic transformations over the past sixty years, the Green Revolution, Livestock Revolution, and globalization of food trade are some of the epochal events observed. The nature and magnitude of biosecurity risks have evolved with the rising intensity and complexity of agriculture and food systems. While transboundary crop pests continue to challenge global food security, zoonotic diseases are rising human health risks. The global movement of goods and people further expanded biosecurity risks, in terms of scale and intensity of impacts. Rising global temperatures will further exacerbate the risks associated with transboundary pest and zoonotic diseases. COVID-19 provides an important example of food systems impacts from a global health shock. Policy and management opportunities for managing biosecurity risks and rebuilding food system resilience need urgent assessment and global action.