The Croatian Food Agency (HAH) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized, on 16 October 2013, an international conference entitled „Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition” to mark the World Food Day. The conference was organized under the high auspices of PhD Ivo Josipović, the President of the Republic of Croatia and under the patronage of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia.
The audience consisted of approximately 130 participants representing national competent authorities, agriculture cooperatives, food industry, consumer’s organizations, scientist, and other stakeholder groups from Croatia and the countries of the region.
In the opening part the audience was welcomed and addressed by the Director of the Croatian Food Agency, Andrea Gross-Bošković, Klara Szeker, representative of the FAO, Vladimir Ham, Deputy Mayor of City of Osijek, Željko Kraljičak, Deputy county perfect of the Osijek-Baranja County and Davorka Hajduković, Assistant Minister, Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic Croatia.
PhD Ivo Josipović, President of the Republic Croatia, addressed to the audience by video message.
The first of the six plenary presentations on Healthy food systems = healthy people was delivered by Klara Szeker, Regional office for Europe and Central Asia, FAO, Budapest, Hungary
Nancy Butijer, Head of Division for Economic Multilateral Relations, Economic and Social Issues, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia, delivered the presentation on Sustainable development and food security in the context of the Post-2015 UN development agenda.
The next presentation State of the ecological and integrated agriculture in Croatia was delivered by Darija Musulin, Head of the Department for Ecological and Integrated Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia.
After the break, Andrea Gross-Bošković, Director of the Croatian Food Agency, presented the Sustainable food systems as models of future development
Then PhD Zdenko Lončarić, from Faculty of Agriculture in Osijek, presented sustainable systems in practice through presentation of the Agri-Conto-Cleen project.
The concluding presentation in plenary part Building resilient urban food systems; new concepts and lessons learnt in practice was delivered by Henk de Zeeuw, Senior advisor in the RUAF-Foundation from the Netherlands.
In the last part of the conference, Gordana Bulić from the Regional associations of the consumers from Tuzla, presented the Project „Europe for citizens – consumers’ rights in the SE Europe and European practice”.
According to the programme, followed discussion and questions by the audience. The conference and discussion was moderated by Vlatka Buzjak from the Croatian Food Agency.
In active debate speakers and participants discussed about the development of urban agriculture systems and the stimulation and willingness of local farmers to accept the concepts of sustainable agricultural production.
