Inaugural address: Professor Sheryl Hendriks

On 05 August 2021 Professor Sheryl Hendriks from the Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, presented her inaugural address entitled: "Food systems approaches: Hope in a post-COVID world". 

Herewith an abstract of her inaugural lecture:

Abstract

The right to food is a fundamental tenet of humanity and linked to multiple other human rights. While governments have an obligation towards these rights, citizens also have obligations to provide for such elements, leaving the role of government to provide the foundational systemic elements necessary to achieve these rights for all people. The context and complexity of the interlinkages of these rights present some intractable challenges to be addressed if we are to feed the world beyond the COVID pandemic. The causes of climate change, conflict, migration, demographic shifts and food consumption patterns changes are documented. Many scientific and technological solutions to malnutrition and food insecurity exist. Yet, decades of development planning, international assistance and declarations of intent have not ensured that no one goes hungry. The number of hungry people has increased in recent years, and the pandemic has exacerbated this. Progress on reducing malnutrition is patchy and inadequate, as macro-level policy and programme planning fail to deliver the direct impacts expected from sectoral interventions in agriculture, health and education. However, new approaches to training, research and policymaking are urgently needed to adopt a food systems approach to advance the development agenda. Transdisciplinary, frontier and translational research approaches offer opportunities to address these complexities but require retooling and reskilling existing professionals and the development of transdisciplinary thinking in future generations of academics and practitioners. 

To view the full paper please contact the UP Archives at [email protected]