EU at Expo Milano 2015, focus on the scientific programme

David Wilkinson (EU Commissioner-general for the EU participation at Expo Milano 2015) and Franz Fischler (chairman of the Scientific Steering Committee) participate in a studio debate moderated by Enrico Brivio (European Commission spokesperson for Environment, Health, Food Safety, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries) on the topic "EU participation at Expo Milano 2015, focus on scientific programme – EU Steering Committee for a scientific programme for Expo."

The EU attaches a great importance to resarch as a way to develop a sustainable food system and to increase to capacity to respond to the demand of a changing world.

"Expo Milano 2015 gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity. There are two main objectives: first of all, we can communicate to general public what the EU is doing in terms of food security for the planet as a whole. Secondly, we have an opportunity for interactive policy development: there will be more than 140 countries participating to the event, and clearly feeding the planet is a global problem. So we can take this opportunity to look globally at how to tackle this emergency." - David Wilkinson

"We must be aware that the system in which we produced food in past cannot stay the same in the future. Therefore, we are dependet on research and innovation: there are still more than 800 billion hungry people on the planet, and about 2 billion people are starving from the lack of micronutrients, while on the other side we have almost 2 billion people who are either obese or overweight. Research is really key to our common future, and we will never reach the global food security without substantially investing in research and development." - Franz Fischler