The 4th ACU Commonwealth Summer School: Global Food Security: Can We Feed a Growing World?

I have been granted one of ten partial bursaries internationally (valued at £350) to attend the fourth ACU Commonwealth Summer School: Global Food Security: Can We Feed a Growing World? together with 80 other post-graduate students from Sunday 17 – Sunday 24 August 2014 at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus, Semenyih.

“The Commonwealth Summer School was instigated by the ACU in 2011. It aims to provide a forum to bring together high quality students from every corner of the Commonwealth to discuss multidisciplinary issues of global importance. A key element of the School is its desire to mix local/regional students with those who may have never  had the opportunity to leave their own regions. The inaugural School was held at the University of Buea, Cameroon, in July 2011 followed by the 2012 School hosted by the University of Botswana and in 2013, the ACU hosted the School in United Kingdom to coincide with the our Centenary.

Why food security?

The world’s population is predicted to hit 9 billion by 2050, and the UN estimates that food production will have to increase by 70% to meet the growth in demand. Issues pertaining to feeding the world’s ever expanding population will be at the heart of the 4th annual ACU Commonwealth Summer School’s programme, designed to take a multidisciplinary look at one of the major issues of our time. Top speakers and facilitators will help to frame the key issues and challenges allowing participants to learn, interact and work across countries, regions and disciplines to build international research connections. Participants will journey through various aspects of food production, looking closely at distribution, environmental management, migration, biotechnology, farm management, supply chains, nutrition and health policy in the process. Delegates will have the opportunity to observe the reality of food management, experience first-hand the food and supply chain, and immerse themselves in the challenges of food production. Through a series of workshops, group work and field-based learning, we will look at how food gets from farm to fork.” quoted from the Association of Commonwealth Universities

I am really looking forward to this opportunity to explore issues of food security and how to bring about food systems change in another “developing” context!