DuPont Industrial Biosciences President, Dr. Bill Feehery, discussed the interconnected and complex challenges of feeding a larger, wealthier population in his talk “Bridging the GapThrough Science, Collaboration And Transparency” at Agrivision 2015 on June 17. His speech covered the importance of identifying the gaps between:
- What is needed and what is produced
- Emerged vs. emerging markets; growing wealth as well as growing population
- Where we are today and where we need to be.
Dr. Feehery also spoke about the contribution that companies like DuPont can bring “to the table,” through science, to address these challenges, and the fact that collaboration and transparency are key to success.
Specifically, he looked at the need to:
- Transfer knowledge locally and globally, which DuPont achieves via its 150+ research and application labs around the world and 13 Innovation Centers.
- Communicate transparently via tools such as DuPont’s Food Security Index, an annual survey on the state of food security in 109 countries
- Achieving commercial sustainability for producers/achieving sustainable growth with new innovations such as probiotic/enzyme combinations that help producers reduce in-feed antibiotic use while also improving profitability.
- Using resources more efficiently, reducing environmental impacts and increasing productivity worldwide – using the lessons learnt in agricultural, food and feed industries to develop sustainable and scalable innovations in numerous energy sectors, both traditional and renewable, and driving energy efficiency solutions with consumers and industry
- Investing in the bio-economy – DuPont’s new Iowa biofuels plant will be powered by non-food corn stover, resulting in a 25% increase in ethanol production from existing acreage.
The Agrivision event has evolved into an impressive and dynamic forum for animal protein industry leaders from across the globe to collaborate on the big issues and challenges, irrespective of geographical or competitive boundaries. For more details of the full program, please see the Agrivision 2015 website.
