Professor Geoffrey Lawrence - Food Security: Global Realities

Professor Geoffrey Lawrence, Co-Leader of the Food Security Focal Area of the Global Change Institute, and professor of Sociology at the University of Queensland will join the Australian Institute of International Affairs to discuss ‘Food Security: Global Realities.’ In 2011, close to one billion of the world’s six billion people are chronically hungry, with this number expected to climb as prices for food staples increase. Alongside this, it is anticipated that food production will need to rise by at least 70 per cent over current levels if the world is to feed its people by the year 2050. Given the entrenched nature of global poverty, the arrival of peak oil, ‘land grabs’ by wealthy nations, and the evidence that climate change is not only ‘real’ but will also have a major impact upon food provision, there is growing concern that the world food crisis will deepen over future decades. Professor Geoffrey Lawrence - former Head of the School of Social Science (2002-2010) – is Professor of Sociology and Co-Leader of the Food Security Focal Area of the Global Change Institute, at The University of Queensland. His work spans the areas of agri-food restructuring, globalization and localization, rural and regional governance, and social aspects of natural resource management. In 2003, and again in 2009, he was appointed by the Federal Government to the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Lake Eyre Basin Ministerial Forum. During his career he has raised some $10 million in research grants and has published twenty five books. Recent co-authored and co-edited books include: Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainability (Earthscan, 2010 [republished 2011]); Supermarkets and Agri-food Supply Chains (Edward Elgar, 2007); Rural Governance (Routledge, 2007); Going Organic (CAB International, 2006); and Agricultural Governance (Routledge, 2005). For his contribution to sociology he was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2004.