12th International Food Data Conference

International specialists and researchers from the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) take part in the 12th International Food Data Conference (IFDC): “From Food Composition to better Policies and Programs in Nutrition and Agriculture”. The event is held at the Cultural Center for Science (C3) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation from October 11^th to 13^th 2017 as a pre-conference of the 21^st International Conference of Nutrition that will take place from October 15^th to 20^th.

This meeting gathers experts from all over the world that will exchange their experiences on the generation and data collection on food composition and their applications in different areas such as nutrition, health, biodiversity, food technology, biotechnology, food policies, and agricultural programs and polices.

The Conference is organized by the INSIBIO, the Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia (CIT) Jujuy, the FAO, LATINFOODS and ARGENFOODS.

During the opening, Norma Sammán, president of LATINFOODS –coordinated by the UN–, stated: “this conference was organized expecting participants to share their experiences to improve the food, health and quality of life of all the population.” Furthermore, she added “I hope this leads to decisions in food production and nutrition that benefit the different populations. Many regions and countries have successfully advanced in the achievement of their food composition and database. Other countries, like us, are on the way. We need technical and scientific effort supported by the government and budget for sustainability.”

For his part, Miguel Laborde, vice chairman of CONICET’s Technological Affairs, presented one institutional video of the Council and added “the theme of this Conference is related to the quality of life of the world population where some people starve, others have low-protein diets, or some regions have obesity problems. Something similar happens in Argentina. These problems, which affect millions of people, should be faced multidisciplinary, scheduling the international scientific agenda according to the needs of each place. For the CONICET, this theme is strategic. We lead and support one Food Safety Network (RSA in Spanish) in which researchers from different institutions, companies and the Council participate.”

The director of the Instituto Superior de Investigaciones Biológicas (INSIBIO, CONICET-UNT), Juan Carlos Díaz Ricci, thanked the attendees and highlighted the role of the institute he leads: “The INSIBIO has been very involved in the collection, processing and publication data to nutritional properties of food concerning Argentina mainly. Likewise, I hope this meeting fosters collaborative research projects that will contribute to answer important questions about food, nutrition and their relationship with human health.”

In the case of Ruth Charrondiere, member of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the ONU, stated: “It’s a pleasure for me to meet you every two years and know what’s been done in terms of food in this last period. I know we’ve achieved already so much but there’s still a lot to be done. I’ve noticed food composition is on the global agenda more and more and more countries and professionals started to recognize the need for food composition data to be their work either in nutrition or in agriculture. Furthermore, I hope funding improve so as to analyze more the food and nutrition to improve them in the entire world.”

During the opening ceremony, Thingnganing Longvah received the Nevin Scrimshaw award, which was created in two thousand nine, for his studies of food composition and contributions at a global level. Besides, Lilia Masson was awarded the Greenfield Southgate Lecture, which has been given since 2011, for her innovative perspectives to the discipline.