The food science program and the Chapman chapter of Oxfam America are teaming up to host a live broadcast of the 25th annual World Food Day Teleconference on Thursday.

The three-hour public event will take place in Beckman Hall Room 404, and will include a panel discussion, a video showing and a question and answer session.

The teleconference will be broadcast from Washington, D.C., by the Food and Agriculture Organization, an international group run by the United Nations.

“This year’s topic is [quite] relevant, and it will show the link between energy, climate change and world hunger,” said Lillian Were, assistant professor of food science.

Were organized the broadcast of the teleconference for the Chapman community. Oxfam and the food science department want to educate the Chapman community about the issues of the food crisis throughout the world with the teleconference.

Moderated by Ray Suarez of PBS, the panel discussion will be among leading experts Nancy Birdsall, the founding president of the Center for Global Development, Siwa Msangi, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Students and community members at the Chapman broadcast will be able to call in to the panel to ask questions about the food crisis, and see them answered live if their questions are chosen.

Were hopes to see more student interest in the international food crisis.

“You have to get the knowledge first, before you have a solution,” said Were, regarding student attendance at the teleconference.

Chapman’s chapter of Oxfam is also hosting a hunger banquet on Tuesday to promote the teleconference. The banquet will highlight the five main reasons for the food crisis around the world, on which the teleconference will expand. Those five reasons, determined by Oxfam, are climate change, oil prices, low investment in agriculture, expensive investments into bio-fuel, and free trade agreements.

Guests at the hunger banquet will randomly pick tickets that have income levels on them, and then will be served a dinner based on what they would get in the world with that kind of income.

“It will give Chapman students an opportunity to come in and experience the food crisis first hand,” said junior Jonathan Cohen, an organizer of the banquet.

The hunger banquet was held after the teleconference last year, but this year Oxfam decided to hold it earlier so that they could publicize the importance of the issues covered in the teleconference.

“In the past, students [weren’t getting] involved [in the teleconference] because they had nothing invested in the issue,” said senior Sasha Milonova, founding president of the Chapman chapter of Oxfam America.


Contact this reporter: anoushka.daska-coyle@thepantheronline.com