Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a pleasure for me to officially open Food Nations first Global Food Talk.

Food Nation is a Danish public-private partnership, and as a patron of this important partnership I have been able to follow the fast development within the global food system closely over recent years.

On my foreign visits I have seen ambitious farmers and food companies around the world striving to streamline their production by investing in technologies that transform their products and processes in a sustainable direction.

Let me highlight an example. In 2017, I visited a Japanese company who had just adopted a Danish egg cracking machine in their plant. On top of being able to crack 140,000 eggs per hour, the machine had a unique way of separating the albumen and the yolk, keeping the discards from production at a minimum. This is an excellent example of how technology can increase efficiency while reducing food loss.

Obviously, travel has been on a minimum over the last 14 months. And the pandemic has changed the world by causing major disruptions to our societies - including our food systems.

The pandemic has shown us quite clearly that a global crisis transcends all geographical and national boundaries. We are in this together and we need to find common solutions.

The goal of our Global Food Talk today is to inspire all stakeholders. To accelerate the actions necessary for a speedy green transition using innovative technology. Scaling the current food system is simply not an option.

Cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovative technology is crucial in supporting the transition towards sustainable agriculture and food production. While pursuing the United Nations 2030 agenda, we need more effective and responsible production practices.

The good news is we are moving in the right direction.

This weekend the P4G Summit aims at becoming the world’s leading forum for developing concrete public-private partnerships at scale to deliver on the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.

Furthermore, the power of innovation has never been greater. The hunt for new smarter ways to support a sustainable development is a key driver of technological advancement. I mentioned the egg machine and there are several other innovative technologies available around the world which in each their own way support the important next steps towards green transition. For example, bio-solutions that enables farmers to produce more efficiently while reducing the amount of input resources.

In the case of Denmark, the technology development has been fostered through the Danish cooperative movement which started in the late 19th century.

Farmers united their knowledge and financial resources to build advanced factories and use skilled production methods that could produce uniform, high-quality products faster and more efficiently by using different technologies.

Today, innovative technologies play a crucial role in increasing yield while decoupling environmental degradation.

Now more than ever, new technology has the potential to take the green transition of our food system a step further. But we need to take collaborative action.

Together, we can build a food system that feeds the entire population while operating within planetary boundaries.

I am confident that we will succeed together. Collaboration is key. Food Nations Global Food Talks is a good starting point to share knowledge, experiences and take actions across borders.

Talk is a great starting point but cannot stand alone. In that spirit I will leave you today with Elvis Presley’s message “a little less conversation, a little more action”.

Thank you.