WEFAL: Daniel Servitje puts food security into the agenda
Daniel Servitje, Grupo Bimbo CEO will participate in the Seventh World Economic Forum on Latin America (WFLA), entitled “Regional Transformation in a New Global Context”, which will be inaugurated by President Felipe Calderón.
The Business Leader will share his thoughts on Latin America’s current challenges and opportunities in a highly competitive global context. The event has summoned over 900 regional and global leaders representing close to 70 countries, as well as private sector, civil society and academia members.
Daniel Servitje participates this year as one of the event Co-Chairs of the B20 Food Safety Taskforce, a forum created so that government leaders maintain an open dialogue with the business sector on subjects such as regulation issues, trade recovery and investment, as well as unemployment decrease. Since 2010, three meetings have been held in Canada, Korea and France.
This year, food safety is one of the central issues in the WEFLA agenda, where new ramifications of a problem that until a few years ago only referred to food distribution deficiencies. In recent times, other factors have been included in the discussions to draft goals and programs such as malnutrition, the use of food as biofuel and lack of productivity of the agricultural sector.
In recent years, the Chief Executive Officer of the baking company with the largest presence in the world has actively participated in the debate on food security at different international fora making important contributions to reach comprehensive and long-term solutions.
In a previous interview he pointed out that in order to meet the global demand for agricultural products driven by population growth, income levels and before an environment marked by scarce resources and climate change, agricultural productivity must increase 50% by 2030.
Grupo Bimbo was the first Latin America-origin company participating in the B20 Food Safety Task Force and, since then, Servitje has point out the importance of private and public sectors collaboration to reach the challenges posed by food security at a global level.
He has also pointed out that in spite the problems around agricultural productivity reduction currently prevalent around the world, environmental sustainability must not be neglected due to its implications for future generations and the improvement of the economic status of farmers. Servitje acknowledged that under the chairmanship of Mexico an inclusive attitude has been consolidated for proposals stemming from other international organizations. The expectation is that this will allow the consolidation of the proposals made by the Work Groups.
Daniel Servitje will have one of the most dynamic agendas within the WEFAL, since he will attend six discussion panels, where he will present the priorities and proposals agreed to by all sectors comprising the Food Security Taskforce. Outstanding is his participation in the presentation that all eight Taskforce Chairpersons will make before President Felipe Calderón; also, he will chair, together with Francisco Javier Mayorga, Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food of Mexico (SAGARPA for its acronym in Spanish) a dialogue panel between the public and private sectors.
