7^th European Food Safety & Standards Conference

Food security exists when all people at all time have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Food and agricultural industries add value to and increase demand for farm outputs, in that way contributing to poverty reduction and food security. Food and nutritional insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean continue be treated by the challenge for reducing of its population affected by hunger, and its complete eradication by 2025. Over the past 20 years, the Latin America and the Caribbean region has significantly increased its share in global agricultural trade. Forecast models show the region could take an even larger role as a global food and agricultural produce supplier. Infrastructure, trade regulations and institutions are among the most significant constraints for future expansion. Food security is consistently seen as one of the key challenges for the coming decades. By the year 2050, the world will need to produce enough food to feed

more than 2 billion additional people, compared to the current 7.2 billion. Most of the population growth will be concentrated in developing countries, adding pressure to their development needs. To meet future food demand, agricultural production will need to increase by 50-70%, according to different estimates. And this will happen as the impacts of climate change are projected to intensify overall, particularly hitting the poorest and most vulnerable countries.  Increasing global food production will be just a part of the story. The other side is trade, or more precisely, ensuring that food exports from countries with a natural comparative advantage can increase and reach those most in need. In this context Latin America and Caribbean can meet this global challenge: Providing knowledge, technologies, materials and technological systems to increase the base structuring knowledge and promote innovation in agribusiness with a focus on food safety and new fronts opened by food technology, food quality, nutraceutical and functional foods.