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Stephan Becker-Sonnenschein

Dear friends of the Global Food Summit,

Covid-19 has also "infected" the concept of sustainability. Whether in economic, social or ecological questions, now that we have the standstill, the restart should be "sustainable".

So domestic flights, car traffic, global transport, agriculture, health systems and and and should be "sustainable", which is understood by most as "dismantled" and "abandoned".

Crises are always drivers of change. But we should keep a critical eye on what goals we want to achieve and how.

The 17 UN Sustainability Targets 2030 are very clearly formulated and also described in 167 sub-targets. For Goal 2, "Zero Hunger", the following is defined:
"To ensure the sustainability of food production systems by 2030 and to adopt resilient agricultural practices that will increase productivity and yields, contribute to the preservation of ecosystems, increase adaptability to climate change, extreme weather events, droughts, floods and other disasters, and progressively improve land and soil quality".

If demands are now being made for "sustainability" in food, it would be desirable to consider the UN goals and ask how, by abandoning industrial production capacity, we can achieve "zero hunger" worldwide, how we can increase yields and adapt to climate extremes.

Then key figures should be defined, what should be achieved by when, and only then should the political discussion begin.

Otherwise, this current COVID sustainability discussion is an ambiguous, soft-hearted propaganda, which neither does justice to the hungry or aspiring people of the Global South, nor to the actors here, nor does it acknowledge the good results achieved so far.

SDG are the number one incentive and innovation driver, especially for young people. They contribute to shaping a world of tomorrow. This must be ecologically sustainable but not only ecologically sustainable. It must also promise the coming generation a life in economic freedom and social security.

The concept of sustainability is more comprehensive than many believe. That is why we will only achieve sustainability in the comprehensive sense, as defined by the UN, through more innovation, more technology and more growth. The fewer natural resources we need and the more technology helps us do so, the more sustainable we can be.

Once these goals have been clearly defined, the necessary understanding and approval from society must also be ensured. Implementation is then a question of the available resources and experience.

Our society is changing. It expects progress that masters the challenges of the future in order to make healthy ageing possible. The Global Food Summit will continue to present progress concepts in the food sector, also digitally. We are currently working on joint concepts with Berlin Science Week.

We look forward to receiving your feedback.

Yours sincerely, Unterschrift Stephan Becker-Sonnenschein Stephan Becker-Sonnenschein

 
 

Interview

Dr. Heike Bach, managing director of Vista GmbH and Robert van der Kooy, market analyst and sales manager Ypsilon BayWa Agri Supply & Trade BV
Essens Icon Food Security Mikroskop Icon Agriculture

Ypsilon is a yield forecast service of BayWa Beteiligungsgesellschaften Vista GmbH, Germany, and BayWa Agri Supply & Trade (BAST) / Cefetra B.V., Netherlands. On the basis of satellite data in combination with Vista's plant growth model, crop yields can be forecast at EU and regional level with a high degree of accuracy and up to eight weeks ahead of the methods established to date.
We spoke with Robert van der Kooy, market analyst and sales manager Ypsilon BayWa Agri Supply & Trade BV and Dr. Heike Bach, managing director of Vista GmbH, and asked them about the potential of Ypsilon.

Ypsilon helps to predict how weather conditions will affect crop yield. Evaluations in recent years indicate that if climate change continues, yields in Europe will fall significantly. How will climate change affect European yields, and is Ypsilon able to correctly predict yields in this changing environment?

Dr. Heike Bach: YPSILON itself is basically a large-scale monitoring tool for the current season for the first time and does not make any recommendations for action. It uses a statistically representative number of samples (several hundred thousand points distributed across Europe) to predict yields for regions and countries, but it does not consider every single field. Of course you can do that, then you are in the realm of our TalkingFields Services.

Robert van der Kooy: Due to climate change, yields will fluctuate more and therefore it will be more important than ever to be able to predict crop yields correctly.
In 2018, Europe experienced an extreme drought. Ypsilon correctly predicted very early in the season that yields would be very disappointing. The effects of the record heat in 2019 were also correctly captured by the Ypsilon model. Because Ypsilon simulates all plant growth, we are able to make predictions even under the most adverse weather conditions.

Dr. Heike Bach: In principle, there has still been a trend towards higher yields over the last 10 years, especially in Eastern Europe, but the drought conditions in Europe in recent years with the corresponding yield losses are a phenomenon that can and will occur more frequently under climate change conditions. Fortunately, data- and information-driven agriculture offers many opportunities for mitigation, from the cultivation of more heat- and drought-resistant varieties to targeted irrigation. Here too, satellite data can be helpful, as it is possible to determine both the growth and the water requirements of the plants and then react with precise measures.

Read the interview here.

 
 

News of the month

                             
Picture: Heura Foods

Boom in alternative proteins

These are incredible figures, as reported by the Good Food Institute (GFI) in its latest report dated 13 May 2020: 930 million US dollars were invested in alternative protein companies in the first quarter of 2020 alone. This means that the first quarter of 2020 has already cracked the industry's successful previous year: in 2019, the companies were able to win 824 million US dollars for the development of their alternative protein products.

Read the articel here.

Commentary: COVID-19 and the meat renunciation




By Dr. Alexander Hinrichs, Managing Director Initiative Tierwohl

The corona pandemic was probably caused by transmission from animals to humans. Even if the presumed hygienic circumstances of transmission in China are not comparable with agricultural animal husbandry in Germany, the unjustified link to local meat production is established. So do the experiences with the Corona pandemic sustainably favour the abandonment of meat in favour of alternative protein sources?

According to a forsa survey conducted in 2020 on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the daily meat consumption of Germans is decreasing in favour of alternative protein sources. Nevertheless, it should be noted: Animal products such as meat or fish are natural products which, when consumed in the right quantities, can make a valuable contribution to a healthy life. They provide not only particularly valuable proteins for humans, but also vitamins, minerals and trace elements.

Vegetable sources of protein, such as pulses or nuts, cannot provide all this in the same quantities. This may be one reason why the proportion of vegetarians and vegans has stagnated in Germany for years at around five percent according to the forsa surveys mentioned above. Insects as sources of protein are currently not particularly accepted in our culture.

Artificially produced meat has a similar disadvantage. Only 24 percent of Germans can even imagine eating these products, according to "Technik Radar 2020". The question of the environmental and climate balance has also not yet been fully answered. After all, "classic" meat production produces valuable by-products for energy generation and plant cultivation, which tend to be omitted in the production of "artificial" meat.

During the corona pandemic it became clear how quickly the food security of the population can become an issue again. In this respect, agricultural animal husbandry in Germany has proven to be an important stability factor and supplier of valuable proteins, also thanks to decentralized structures.

If all aspects are summarized soberly, it can be said that even if the Germans' curiosity about alternative sources of protein is certainly there, meat from farm animals will probably remain the most important source of protein in the Western world for the foreseeable future - also and precisely because the possibility of future pandemics must be increasingly taken into account. This makes approaches such as the Animal Welfare Initiative, which aims to reconcile large scale production with animal welfare, all the more indispensable.

Find out more about the Initiative Tierwohl

 
 

Global Food Summit on the road


innovate!Now "Agrifood beats Corona" 
30

The first Innovate!Now conference took place on 30.04.2020 from 17.00 hrs. and was attended by several hundred people. The organisers would like to express their praise for the organisation.

The roundtable "Beyond Corona: Alternative Proteins - Technology and Morals" was chaired by Global Food Summit founder Stephan Becker-Sonnenschein. The discussion about the effects of corona on alternative protein production pointed to ways that could make a more sustainable production of proteins possible in the future. Plant alternatives were discussed, as well as insect-based alternatives, from stem cell cultures or through fermentation processes.

We would like to thank you for your participation and the interesting discussion at the roundtable!

April
2020


 
 

Bavarian Nutrition Cluster develops future scenarios for the food industry in a study

Highlights unser Sponsoren

With the current corona crisis, the framework conditions of many players in the food industry are changing massively. The Bavarian Nutrition Cluster, together with experts from business, science and administration, is therefore working on future scenarios for the food industry following the effects of Covid-19. Cluster Nutrition CEO Dr. Simon Reitmeier: "We want to provide companies in the food industry with a possible guideline for the future. We hope to be able to provide orientation in these uncertain times".

The study "Corona stress test: What are the consequences of the corona crisis for nutrition?" initially consists of the development of compact scenarios of the corona crisis and is intended to outline the short- to medium-term changes, so that companies are prepared and can react flexibly to further developments. In a second step, the scenarios of the food industry 2030 from 2017 published by the Nutrition Cluster will be re-evaluated and updated to capture possible long-term changes. The results will be published in July. The methodical management of the scenarios is carried out by ScMI Ag.

Find out more about the Bavarian Nutrition Cluster

A sugar substitute for pastries

Innovationen News

Excessive sugar consumption has been shown to lead to conditions such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. That is why a lot of research is being done on how to sweeten with alternative products.

The available natural sugar alternatives, such as stevia, can be expensive and often do not mix well with existing product ingredients.
The company Stem (formerly Cambridge Glycosciences) has been working on this topic in Cambridge, UK, since 2017 and has developed a method to extract and purify natural low-calorie sugar from plant fibres.

"It is more difficult to replace sugar in solid food because sugar plays a role in texture; it becomes brown, caramelized and crystallized," said founder and CEO Dr. Tom Simmons in labiotech.eu. "You could add Stevia to a cake mix and take the sugar out and it would be sweet in principle, but it wouldn't really taste like a cake because it would simply lack all the texture".

To solve this problem, Tom Simmons and his team are working on natural compounds that have a similar chemical structure to the sugar we get from sugar beet or sugar cane. As a result, Stem's sugar tastes like our usual sugar used in common products. According to the manufacturer, the sugar is used as dietary fibre in the digestive system.

Stem is currently focusing on the baked goods market, but in the long term wants to be the price competitive sugar alternative in the entire food market and expects to achieve competitive prices within five years.

Tesvolt Press Release: Tesvolt Pover Storage reduces energy cost in fish farming

 
 
Innovationen NewsPicture: Tesvolt

Over 150,000 euros saved per salmon generation

Wittenberg, 12 November 2019 The Norwegian fish farming company Kvarøy is using a Tesvolt bulk storage tank on its salmon farm off the island of Selsøyvær in the North Sea. On the floating work platform, the lithium batteries with a total storage capacity of 158 kilowatt hours (kW) reduce the operating time of the diesel generators from 24 to only three hours a day. When rearing a generation of salmon, which takes about 18 months, the company thus saves between 150,000 and 200,000 euros and reduces CO2 emissions. The battery system was developed, supplied and installed by the German commercial storage manufacturer Tesvolt together with its Norwegian partner company Kverneland Energi to meet the individual requirements on the fish farm.

Read the press release from Tesvolt here

Find out more about the project.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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