BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:unctad.org BEGIN:VEVENT UID:6a5276dfa090a DTSTART:20210913T130000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE DTEND:20210913T143000Z LOCATION:Virtual Conference Centre\, Frangipani Auditorium\, SUMMARY:Global Commodities Forum - Session 1: Food security and smart agric ulture: the role of technology and services CLASS:PUBLIC DESCRIPTION: Watch opening address by Mia Amor Mottley The Global Commodi ties Forum is a major multi-stakeholder meeting to discuss pragmatic solut ions to perennial problems of the commodity economy.The theme of the 2021 Forum is “Strengthening Resilience in Commodity Dependent Countries”. It will connect policy makers with practitioners to address the current ch allenges and future opportunities for commodity dependent economies.The fi rst session of the Forum will be dedicated to agriculture\, with a focus o n food security and the necessary policy actions to preserve it.The United Nations has set ending hunger\, achieving food security and improved nutr ition\, and promoting sustainable agriculture as the second of its 17 Sust ainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by the year 2030. Ensuring food for all also poses enormous economic\, political and technological c hallenges. Such challenges have been exacerbated during the pandemic. In this context several issues need to be addressed – namely:What are the m ajor farm to market issues?How could production integration enhance supply capacity?How can regional integration help reduce food import bills?What are the policy instruments to be put in place to facilitate food security? How is climate change and deregulation impacting agricultural production a nd food security?How is land availability affected by energy crops and sol ar farms?Access to natural gas offers a major comparative advantage in the area of agriculture\, given its function as one of the key ingredients in fertilizer. Besides attracting fertilizer manufacturing companies\, how a re countries using this to build a strong agricultural sector\, adding val ue to their economies and providing greater food security?Technology has a lready played an important role in improving efficiency of agricultural pr oduction and it will be essential to render such improvements sustainable. Technology could increase not only the quantity and but also improve the quality of agricultural products. Farmers nowadays can have access to solu tions such as GPS\, soil scanning\, data management\, and Internet of Thin gs technologies. There is also scope for enhancing linkages between the se rvices and agriculture sectors through public-private partnerships.Several issues need specific attentionHow could a smart agriculture approach help to deal with supply shocks such as those observed during the COVID-19 pan demic?How could the deployment of various services foster food security an d help achieve the SDGs?What would be an appropriate regulatory framework to enable a proactive role of services in achieving SDG 1 and SDG 2?How co uld access to capital be facilitated? Can trade in services play a role in improving food production?What are the linkages between agriculture\, int ellectual property and services trade and how could these linkages help an swer the previous question?  Watch recording of Session 1 Registration and attendanceRegistration and attendance are free of charge\, but registr ation through UNCTAD website is mandatory for all participants\, including invited government representatives\, experts\, and speakers.We recommend each participant to log in to the event 20 minutes in advance to verify th e quality and stability of their connection. Our Partners  <\;p>\;& amp\;nbsp\;<\;/p>\;<\;p class="\;text-align-center\n\nView meeti ng on unctad.org\nhttps://unctad.org/meeting/global-commodities-forum-sess ion-1-food-security-and-smart-agriculture-role-technology-and DTSTAMP:20260711T170119Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR