Prince of Wales to serve heirloom tomatoes
The event, Food Forever – Actions for a Resilient Food System, will take place at Clarence House, The Prince’s official London residence, on Tuesday 30th January. It will be held in conjunction with the Crop Trust.
“The Prince of Wales, our Global Patron, has long-championed the importance of crop diversity and the need for sustainable farming,” said Marie Haga, Executive Director of the Crop Trust. “We deeply appreciate The Prince’s steadfast commitment and support to what we do.”
“Conserving the countless varieties of food crops is an insurance policy for humankind,” continues Haga. “Crop diversity is the raw material that scientists need and use to adapt our crops to new and unforeseen challenges.”
Guests at the luncheon will include President of the Republic of Mauritius, Her Excellency Ameenah Gurib Fakim; UK Secretary of State for Food and Rural Affairs Michael Gove; UAE Minister of Climate change and Environment; and celebrity farmer Adam Henson. Executives from the food and financial sectors together with NGO representatives will also be in attendance.
They will enjoy a specially prepared menu, which will include heirloom tomatoes, and apple crumble made from different types of apples from orchards at the Prince’s Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to not just celebrate crop diversity, but to raise awareness of the fact that these underused and overlooked foods can play a key role in adapting agriculture to climate change and providing more sustainable and nutritious diets,” said Her Excellency, Ameenah Gurib Fakim.
“The coming together of people from such a broad range of disciplines demonstrates that more and more people are taking stock of the importance of crop diversity and sustainability farming,” she continued. “It will help us to spread the message that if we don’t take care of crop diversity, crop diversity can’t take care of us.”
Crop diversity is the range of plants used in agriculture. Modern farming typically focuses on a small number of these to produce food for the world. Crop diversity includes many so-called “forgotten foods” that are in danger of being lost, despite the fact they could help agriculture adapt to climate change and provide more sustainable and nutritious diets for a growing world population.
Target 2.5 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals calls for action by 2020 to conserve and share crop diversity to help future-proof agriculture.
Following the reception, guests will attend a special discussion hosted by the Crop Trust as part of the Food Forever initiative, at the UK headquarters of financial services company Deutsche Asset Management. There, they will get a chance to dive deeper into the issues affecting global food systems and the role food diversity can play in sustainable agriculture and more nutritious diets.
Speakers include Michael Gove MP, Manuel Pulgar Vidal of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and Gunhild Stordalen, President of the EAT Foundation.
“The world is becoming increasingly aware of the need to rethink and rebuild our food systems to ensure they provide everyone with enough nutritious food, without ruining the environment,” said Stordalen. “These kinds of discussions are what will help us make the transformation to the food systems of the future.”
For more information:
www.croptrust.org