Date:    Tuesday, 4 September 2018
Time:    17:00 for 17:30
RSVP:   30 August 2018 at [email protected]

Felix Reinders PrEng SAAE was a member of the SAAE delegation to the CAETS meetings in Madrid, Spain, in November 2017. He manages the Irrigation and Drainage Engineering Division at the Agricultural Research Council’s Institute for Agricultural Engineering in Pretoria. He is a past president of the SA Institute of Agricultural Engineers and of the SA Irrigation Institute (SABI).

The presentation will touch on the following topics:

THE FUTURE OF FOOD – issues relating to the successful and reliable production of sufficient, nutritious food for meeting the future needs of communities locally and world-wide.

GENETIC ENGINEERING – development of the historic, natural genetic modification of plants and animals to meet the needs of and enable the growth of ancient civilizations, in a new era of genetic engineering that extends this process beyond single traits of species to “rewire” complex metabolic, sensorial and developmental circuits of species, and even the engineering of new genes.

THE BLUE BIOECONOMY – increasing the sustainable utilisation of the oceans and inland waters to make a significant contribution to food security for a growing global population.

ENERGY – world-wide responses to climate change include deep and widespread changes in the energy sector, including the rapid expansion of electricity production from naturally occurring sun and wind, and increasing interest in the energy potential of biomass.

This lecture is open to the public.