The Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA) is an international conference on agri-food policy issues which takes place usually in Berlin, Germany. Due to the Corona restrictions the conference took place this year only virtually from January 18th to 22nd, 2021. By choosing “How to Feed the World in Times of Pandemics and Climate Change” as the topic for this year’s event, the GFFA 2021 addresses two particularly important challenges to global food supply which require global cooperation https://www.gffa-berlin.de/en/ .
On January 20th, 2021, a panel discussion on the role of the seed sector in strengthening the resilience of agricultural production took place in the frame of the GFFA. This panel discussion was organized by the GFA Consulting Group and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). As part of a virtual expert panel discussion with representatives from science and agribusiness, concrete experiences from the projects of the Bilateral Cooperation Programme (BKP) of the BMEL in India and Ethiopia have been presented and discussed.
After the introduction to the topic of the event, the National Project Coordinator Dr Sowmini Sunkara gave short overview about the ongoing Indo-German Cooperation Project on Seed Sector Development, emphasising the objectives, approaches and the evolution of the project as well as key partners in India and Germany involved. Along with this presentation, a short video clip was also presented by the Indo-German project describing briefly the impact of climate change on agriculture production in India and the role of the seed sector in strengthening the resilience of agricultural production. This was completed by a short introduction on the Indian experience and challenges in this context by Dr Malavika Dadlani, who is the President of the Indian Society of Seed Technology and regular active as Senior Short-term Seed Sector Expert of the Indo-German seed project.
The details of the panel is available Online @ https://www.gffa-berlin.de/en/fachveranstaltungen-2021/fachpodien/fachpodium-8/
Panel discussion is available online @https://youtu.be/K6ZZZr5gPAA
