The Aspen Institute Food Security Strategy Group is a collaboration of the Institute's Energy & Environment, Aspen Global Health and Development, and Middle East Programs that will address critical gaps in the current food security dialogue.

Ensuring global food security in the twenty-first century will require innovations in governance and policy that establish means for global populations to build on new combinations of resources, policy and innovation. This evolution must link complex science and policy deliberations and global agriculture companies to the needs of the smallest farmers on the most remote farms. The Aspen Institute Food Security Strategy Group aims to establish the links essential to this needed progress.

As distinct from existing food security initiatives, the Aspen Initiative will take a 20-30 year view on policy and private sector strategic challenges around four key areas: 1) Population, Health, and Poverty, 2) Science, Technology, and Innovation 3) Environmental Sustainability, and 4) Markets, Trade and Investment. The initiative's overarching goal will be to determine how to double food production by mid-century to sustainably and equitably feed a world population of more than nine billion, without exceeding the natural resources carrying capacity of the planet.

The initial vehicle for the Aspen Initiative on Global Food Security is the Dialogue Series on Global Food Security, with the first of three convenings comprising the dialogue launching in the fall of 2012. In this global round-table dialogue series, our team will convene top-level leaders in food security policy, business and research.

With leadership from Aspen Institute Directors Peggy Clark, David Monsma, and Toni Verstandig,  and drawing upon the expertise of Secretary Dan Glickman, the objectives of the Food Security Strategy Group and relevant dialogue series are to:

• Engage leaders cross major sectors who have a stake, role or expertise in sustainable development, food security, and one or more of the four key themes;
• Identify breakthrough ideas at the intersection of the four key disciplines and issue areas and explore ways in which these ideas could be put into practice; and
• Recommend policy and action strategies to engage communities, businesses, governments and other leaders across the globe in the development of programs,  public-private partnerships, and policies, that focus on the critical linkages between environmental sustainability, technological innovation, health and poverty, and trade and market development in pursuit of global food security.

The goals of the Aspen Dialogue on Global Food Security will be to broker and facilitate partnerships, convene across networks, mobilize awareness and resources, and incubate ideas. The long-term measure of success will be whether these recommendations or principles can be carried into the public arena and accepted by policymakers, businesses, markets and other actors.