United States to participate in Expo Milano 2015 food security fair
March 27, 2014 | 05:51 PM
The United States will participate in Expo Milano 2015, a world’s fair whose theme is “Feeding the planet — Energy for life,” President Barack Obama said in Italy today, according to two National Security Council tweets.
@NSC Press tweeted:
POTUS: The US will be at #ExpoMilano2015! USA Pavilion will showcase US commitment to #Europe & #foodsecurity @FeedtheFuture #ObamainItalia
American Food 2.0 Pavilion @ #ExpoMilano2015 will showcase sustainability & nutrition that @FLOTUS & POTUS care deeply about @letsmove
According to the Milano Expo website:
“The American pavilion has been designed to look like a granary in keeping with the architectural concept ‘American Food 2.0’ and will offer an innovative exploration of the theme of ‘Feeding the planet, Energy for Life.’ Visitors will be provided with tools and solutions that can respond to two of the challenges faced by the worldwide population on a daily basis: food safety and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, topics that the Obama administration has shown great sensitivity towards over the years.”
Several delegates to the World Farmers’ Organization meeting in Buenos Aires today have also discussed the importance of pointing out the role of famers in food production in their countries' pavilions.
The expo will be held May 1 to Oct. 31, 2015 in Milan, Italy.
At a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Obama said, “I’m proud to announce today that the United States will participate in the Expo. And together with our partners, we’re going to put together an outstanding USA pavilion that showcases American innovation to improve agriculture and nutrition and the health of people around the globe.”
“I already have some volunteers from my staff who want to go and really make sure that the Expo goes smoothly,” Obama said. “I suspect that some restaurants and shopping may somewhere be in their agenda.”
At a news conference in Rome, Secretary of State John Kerry thanked the Chamber of Commerce, the International Culinary Center, the James Beard Foundation, 3M, McKinsey, Eli Lilly and DuPont for backing the pavilion.
“You do not have to be a rocket scientist or an anthropologist or a genius or a professor to understand as you look at what’s happening in the world today,” Kerry said.
“With about 6-plus billion or whatever it is today heading to 9 billion over the course of the next 35 years, there is going to be unbelievable demand on resources. When you couple that with climate change and the already real impacts on farming and fishing and all the other things that are part of sustaining life on this planet, we have a challenge.”
“'That’s what makes Milan Expo 2015 particularly timely, and we are therefore excited about it,” Kerry continued. “Also, we have developed a new program called SelectUSA where we’re working to interest other companies to actually come and invest in the United States too. It works in both directions. But our purpose in taking part in this expo, ironic as it may seem for the United States to talk about bringing food to Italy of all places — I know that’s a little bit of a coal to Newcastle situation.”
Kerry concluded, “I have one message to all of you: Those of you representing Italian companies who do business with American companies, we want you to get them excited about this. We’re going to help market it. We will help engage. But tell your peers they’ve got to be involved in this. This is going to be 100 percent supported by the private sector, and therefore we need to go to work to make sure that the pavilion is at the level that we want it to be, that it showcases the creativity and technology and capacities that we have with respect to both sustainability and long-term stability and growth and food security for a growing population on this planet.”
According to the website, the event will focus on food security, hunger, and with promoting environmentally, socially, economically sustainable global food production practices.
More than 140 countries are expected to participate, which will be held in Milan’s Rho Pero trade fair exhibition center. Italy is expected to have the largest exhibition, followed by China.
