Securing Food Sustainably

Lausanne, 17 May 2024
On 13 May 2024, the President of the SATW – Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences, Benoit Dubuis, hosted the SATW Annual Congress at the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne. The event brought together experts from science, business, and politics, including acatech President Jan Wörner, to discuss the topic of “Securing food sustainably”.
How can we safeguard the health of 10 million people in Switzerland and 10 billion worldwide, while ensuring they have nutritious food?
This question was posed by internationally committed scientists and representatives from business and politics at the annual congress of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences SATW on 13 May 2024 in Lausanne.
The President of the SATW is convinced that the sustainable safeguarding of food and health is an extremely complex challenge that requires a global approach. In his keynote speech, Jan Wörner builds on this by stating that various geopolitical tensions and crises are forcing us to consider the security of supply and the necessity of long-term solutions that must be secure, resilient, and sustainable. He emphasised the need for strategic sovereignty and international cooperation.
Stefan Palzer, Chief Technology Officer of Nestlé, and Marcel Salathé, Co-Director of the AI Centre at EPFL, provided insights into the topic of functional food and associated ideas for using functional food in a preventive or complementary way. The issue of food security and access to medicines was addressed in input presentations by Patrick Aebischer, former President of EPFL and Vice President of GESDA, Catharina Boehme, Assistant Director General for External Relations at WHO, and Jean-Marc Chappuis, Deputy Director of the Federal Office for Agriculture. These topics were subsequently discussed in greater depth.
Jan Wörner and Benoît Dubuis emphasise the excellent cooperation between the two academies by jointly shaping the SATW annual congress.