Blog Building a sustainable food future through science and innovation: The Alliance at the Meeting di Rimini 2022

On the heels of the 43rd edition of the Meeting di Rimini 2022, the Alliance/CGIAR reflects on the key outcomes of the four-day event, taking place on 20-25 August. The Meeting di Rimini is an annual international summer festival, gathering multi-stakeholder actors for change including representatives of religions and cultures, managers, heads of institutions, intellectuals, scientists, and artists. The Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples Foundation established this event aimed at offering an open forum for dialogue and knowledge exchange on critical current issues to promote cultural and social development as well as foster solidarity among peoples. This year’s Meeting di Rimini returned attendance to pre-pandemic levels, counting 800,000 visitors on premises, 3,000 volunteers, and 400+ journalists responsible for the 4,700 media outputs.

The Alliance/CGIAR featured in the 5,000 square meters International Pavilion, organized and coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and offered to other partners alongside UN FAO, Coldiretti, CIHEAM Bari, Agenzia Italiana per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo (AICS), and Save the Children. The International Pavilion provided a space dedicated to enhancing international cooperation in tackling global challenge, allowing partners to engage with numerous visitors and organizations to create opportunities for knowledge exchange and encourage them to continue to foster multi-stakeholder dialogues.

This year’s theme of the International Pavilion, “the right to food is a human right” celebrated food and its centrality to human and planet health and well-being. Visitors noted that while the challenges of hunger, climate crisis, COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing conflicts remain formidable, there is also strong momentum and energy behind multi-stakeholder actions to transform current food systems, making them safer, more sustainable, and resilient to shocks and stresses. In line with its mission, the Alliance/CGIAR stood as a leading research organization in innovation for food systems and a supporter of making bold choices and integrate solutions to reverse negative trends. To build a sustainable food future means tapping into the power of research and innovation to develop and implement new science-based technologies, and ensure that these solutions are accessible to all.

The International Pavilion organized hourly guided tours for visitors interested in deep diving into the organization’s mission, vision, and work areas while the multimedia bench was the hook that captured the visitors’ attention to learn about the Alliance/CGIAR’s projects, and to ask questions to the guide. Visitors learned about the importance of gene banks for conserving value crop diversity through the Future Seeds facility in Colombia, the use of advanced technologies in research such as Google’s Mineral Project Don Roverto, and the tremendous potential of scientific ventures to respond to current market demands and generate positive impact through the work of the Accelerate for Impact Platform.

The Alliance/CGIAR also hosted one of the ten talks in the International Pavilion; ‘Climate crisis and food security: The role of innovative technology and entrepreneurship’(ITA). 

Speakers included: 

• Gianpiero Menza, Senior Partnerships and Innovative Finance Officer, Alliance/ CGIAR,
• Margot Angot, Coordination and Project Officer, UNDP Rome Center for Climate Action and Energy Transition,
• Celeste Righi Ricco, Researcher, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), and Co-founder, Change for Planet,
• and was moderated by Claudia Zaccari, Junior Analyst, Alliance/CGIAR.

Panelists spoke to the strength of research and innovation develop and implement new science-based technologies and ensure that these solutions are accessible to all. Placing innovation and digital transformation at the core of the agricultural agenda is key to empower farmers, enabling greater access to information, finance, and markets.

Here are three key takeaways from this talk. 

1. It is critical to invest in scientific research in agriculture and food systems to develop solutions, products, and services that can support to create jobs, stimulate economic growth, and provides concrete solutions for rural communities, youth, and women. Solutions must be designed to respond to the present threats impacting food systems as well as to foresee, prevent, and increase resilience to future challenges.
2. Youth will bear the most severe impacts of the climate crisis. In response to this immense threat, young people are taking the streets and using global fora to call for urgent action. Youth are ambassadors of change and have the responsibility to approach this process with critical thinking, self-awareness, passion, and commitment.
3. Need for a more prominent role of government through creative ways to fund investment gaps to bring science from lab to market. Government should invest and support when the private sector does not as it considers research too risky and not remunerative.