On Wednesday 29th June, a conference was held in Alicante on “Food security: challenges and prospects for the Mediterranean Region“, organized by the Casa Mediterráneo, the Prima Foundation and the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM). The main objective of the day of debate was to analyse the consequences that the war following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having on food security in the less developed countries of the Mediterranean.
The conference began with a presentation from the directors of the three institutions followed by two round table discussions. In the first round table, participants analysed food security in the region before and after the war and the measures taken by southern countries to prevent a serious social and political crisis as a consequence of the rise in the prices of cereals and other raw materials. They also discussed the strategies deployed by the European Union and other international organizations to mitigate these effects, and talked about the role of knowledge, science and technology in reducing the problems of food supply and food access, in particular for the more vulnerable classes.
The second round table concentrated on two research and innovation projects related to the conference. The PRIMA CEREALMED project aims to identify and conserve traditional durum wheat seeds in some emblematic areas of production in Europe so they can be used to develop new, disease-resistant plant material capable of maintaining high yield and quality levels. The national GOINNOWATER project is run by the supra-regional task force for the improvement of water and energy use in modernized fruit irrigation, and focuses on irrigators’ communities of south-eastern Spain specialized in persimmon and peach production.
Besides the intrinsic interest of the topics addressed, this conference is a milestone as it marks the beginning of the collaboration between three institutions that have evident complementarities, both in their Mediterranean scope of action and in their capabilities.
