AYV News, September 17, 2024
Sierra Leone’s President Dr. Julius Maada Bio and the First Lady Dr. Fatima Maada Bio departed from Freetown International Airport for Oxford, United Kingdom, to attend the Fourth Annual OpenAg Symposium 2024. President Bio will be delivering the keynote address at the event.
The event according to State House, hosted at the Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre, Saïd Business School, will highlight the critical role of sustainable agricultural practices in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change.
By embracing practices that promote resilience and sustainability, agriculture can be a key contributor to ensuring the security of food, water and energy resources for the future.
The theme for this year’s symposium is Power Plants: ‘Transforming Food, Energy and Water Security through Agriculture featuring panels on Energy Security and Water Security’.
The symposium is jointly hosted by the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Oxford, and UPL to foster a multi-stakeholder dialogue on the future of food systems. It’s an invite-only event with limited spots so register soon. More speakers will be announced soon.
Agriculture faces a wide array of threats: widespread pests, social unrest, unpredictable market dynamics, and extreme weather conditions to name but a few. When discussing these issues within the context of agri-food systems, here is where resilience usually enters conversations.
It is a concept often discussed in relation to being either robust enough to resist shocks, or resourceful enough to recover to a pre-shock status. While obviously beneficial in the short-term, these outcomes are not necessarily sustainable.
After all, a system or enterprise that can survive any shock will require ever more capacity as and when stresses increase. Especially in the face of the climate crisis, longer term solutions to enhance the resilience of agricultural systems are vital.
OpenAg Symposium 2023, a half-day conference to be held on October 6, aims to investigate practical interventions to support farmer and societal welfare by enhancing agricultural resilience. It will explore the intersections between resilience and livelihoods, sustainable productivity, nutrition, and policy in the pursuit of more equitable farming futures.
Above all, it will ask how resilience concepts can assist in creating flexible, communicative and resourceful systems that equip farmers with the tools needed to adapt as demands on global agriculture change.