Davis College
News/Events

The 25th annual World Food Day Teleconference will be broadcast from noon to 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in room 101 A and B of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy on West Virginia University’s Evansdale Campus. This year’s teleconference adopts the theme, “Choices for a Warm and Hungry Planet.”

The current United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report states that “climate change is the defining human development challenge of the 21st Century. Failure to respond to that challenge will stall and then reverse international efforts to reduce poverty? Looking to the future, no country – however wealthy or powerful – will be immune to the impact of global warming.”

This year’s teleconference will examine the issues affected, the challenges posed and the diversity of approaches that will be required to respond. Three experts from very different backgrounds will speak. Dr. Nancy Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development; Dr. Siwa Msangi, from the International Food Policy Research Institute; and Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s Secretary of State, will discuss the many cross-cutting issues and consider ways to encourage collaborative efforts by concerned citizens in every sector of society. Ray Suarez of PBS’s Jim Lehrer NewsHour will moderate. In addition to the guest panelists there will be a live uplink from the World Food prize ceremonies in Iowa.

The program will be broadcast live from Washington, D.C. For more information on the teleconference or other World Food Day resources, please visit www.worldfooddayusa.org. For more information on the WVU broadcast, please contact Bill Bryan, professor of plant and soil sciences, wbryan@wvu.edu, 304-293-6256×4318.