Pro food pro pack

On August 22, 23 and 24, the Agribusiness, Food Processing and Packaging fraternities will once again combine to showcase Sri Lanka’s food supply chain. This year the exhibition will be focused on Innovation, Sustainability and Knowledge. The theme of this year’s show and its concurrent events will be “Secure the Taste”.

As in previous years the show will create opportunities for individuals and companies to introduce new products, technology and services. The Show is a Public Private partnership with the Ministry of Industries and the Ministry of Agriculture supporting the event for the seventh year in succession.

The era when countries supplied cheap food for its labour force in order to produce industrial goods at a cheaper price as a means of being competitive is coming to an end. During this time the planets population has trebled from 2.5 billion to 7 and will grow a further 30 per cent in the next 12 years.

Environmental destruction and indiscriminate use of the world’s resources has hit back at the core of the world’s food supply chain. Important natural food sources such as the sea are soon becoming redundant and at the current rate of acidification may not yield any more fish in its current form within the next 200 years and rising sea levels will destroy much of the cultivatable land.

The opportunities and the possibilities within this gloomy environment for Sri Lanka are unbelievable. For a country with a nett excess of renewable water resources, good arable land and a knowledgeable farming community with a proud history of over 3000 years complimented by descent weather patterns the question we should ask ourselves is ‘are we going to let one more opportunity pass us by like so many before this?’

The challenges for the country would be how we move away from this highly politicised climate disrupting free flow of the food supply chain and get back to a national agenda of peace and reconciliation.

“How do we get our young scientists and entrepreneurs, brought up in the current narrow education system to compete globally but think locally? How do we free up thousands of hectares of cultivatable lands with the state to investors and farmers?”

How do we enhance food production by 40 per cent by simply addressing post harvest loss? How do we preserve our seasonal crops through innovative and sustainable technology? How do we produce more healthy and safe food in a sustainable manner? Simply how do we get back to our senses, reach back into the past and come to terms with the fact that our ancestors did better than us?

Agbiz, Profoods / Propack 2008 is all about getting Sri Lanka focused at this important task at hand. The exhibition will have a total of 220 stalls covering the totality of the food supply chain giving opportunities for investors, traders and consumers to see first hand availability and opportunities.

The event will showcase the latest innovations in the local processed food industry, technology and packaging, agricultural machinery, seeds, services, education and fertilizer.

The concurrent events such as the Food awards of excellence will benchmark best practices and reward performance within the industry.

The first young innovator poster show and competition will unveil innovation among the countries youthful scientists and entrepreneurs in the field, giving opportunities for investors and cooperates to see first hand the available talents. The winners will be rewarded with a trip to a renowned food technology institute in the Asian region.

The Agbiz and farmer awards will reward leading organisations and their contribution to the industry while giving the country an opportunity to appreciate the rural farmer for the great job of keeping the nation fed. We will once again be recognising icons in agribusiness exposing our past greats and their contribution.

These events will be focused at creating a national strategy to beat the global food crisis.