Biotech Updates

Europe Initiates Major Collaborative Research Effort For Food Security

June 18, 2010

The Scientific Advisory Board for the European Union Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change conducted their first meeting last June 10, 2010 to prepare the nationally-funded research that will secure a safe and sustainable food supply. This scheme is a collaboration of twenty European countries, with the leadership of France's National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

"Food security is a stark matter of life and death and without it there is no other kind of security. Quite rightly, billions of euros are being invested by public and private sector in tackling this huge challenge. But no one Member State can succeed on its own. We can only get full value for public research funds by working together. This Joint Programming Initiative will help replace fragmentation and duplication with coherence and coordination and will therefore be a major contribution to the Europe 2020 Strategy," said Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science.

For more information, read the press release at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/714&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en.