An ICTP Hybrid Meeting

Human activities over the millennia have caused deep modifications of the environment with a sudden acceleration, starting from the industrial revolution, defining the nowadays era as “Anthropocene”. This term means that man has been able to modify the environment to make it more suitable to its wellbeing. Unfortunately, some of these modifications are dangerous for the man survival and did highly compromise the environment to future generations. 

Climate change, the consumption of non-regenerable natural resources, the loss of biodiversity are just some of the consequences of human activities. To change this situation, much needs to be done. But how to do it, which will be the costs and the opportunities of the ecological transition, is not yet very clear. 

A simple solution could be the decrease of human activities that have an impact on the environment, moving towards the so called “happy degrowth”.

Another approach could be to continue along the growth path, through a series of scientific and technological revolutions, able to erase the net impact on the environment. In this scenario, food production has a significant impact: on the climate change, on the non-regenerable natural resources consumption, on the loss of biodiversity, mainly as a consequence of the primary agricultural production.

Nowadays agriculture is facing a triple challenge: producing more, consuming less and improving the food nutritional characteristics. In this way there could be positive effects on nutrition, environment and health. The sustainable intensification of agriculture is necessary to answer the increase of the food needs and to reduce the environmental costs of food production.
 

Scientific and technological progress could lead us to have plants and animals able to use better the environmental factors, such as water and fertilizers, and to better defend themselves against pathogens. 

Therefore a more organic agriculture cannot ignore scientific progress and the use of technology. The road towards sustainable food and agriculture goes through the most advanced technologies in the genetic and agronomic fields, and it needs an efficient legislation to allow innovations to get in the market without unnecessary constraints and/or restrictions, together with the people trust in science and acceptance of innovations. 

 

The workshop in Trieste will have a global focus, will be divided into three sessions and will be held in English. 
 

In addition, participants can join a related, hybrid public event of two hours (17.00-19.00 CET) in Udine to held in Italian. For those interested in participating please see the Programme here - the access is free up to 280 people.

Grants: A limited number of grants are available to support the attendance of selected participants, with priority given to participants from developing countries. There is no registration fee.