That’s the title of the public lecture I’ll give tomorrow (3 Nov) at Agricultural University in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The talk is part of a ceremony celebrating the beginning of a new Master’s program in Agribusiness Management and Entrepreneurship that AU is starting in collaboration with the Ag & Applied Economics Department at the University of Missouri.
The basic idea of the talk is that feeding 9.6 billion people by 2050 (the UN’s current projection) will require more than just improvements in agricultural production technologies and practices. As it is now, an abundance of food is wasted globally each year, even as millions suffer from malnutrition. So the solution has to be about more than just growing more food.
Much of the waste results from poor political and market institutions globally. These problems can only be addressed by better understanding how markets work and how policy and regulation affects market workings; and by encouraging innovation not only in production technologies, but in value chain structures that deliver more and better food that people want to where they are. This new masters program is intended to help equip leaders in Bulgarian agriculture to do just that.
After the ceremonies, I’ll be teaching the first of four courses in the program being taught be faculty from Missouri over the next 14 months.
If you happen to be in Plovdiv, you’re welcome to drop in for the public lecture.