Industry Leaders Address Food Resilience at APAC Summit

Industry leaders from Olam Agri, KPMG, Nestlé, and Novonesis will convene at the APAC Agri-Food Innovation Summit in Singapore from October 27 to 29 to address food system resilience and nutrition security. The participants argue that resilience must begin at the origin with smallholder farmers, who currently face threats to economic viability from rising costs and climate volatility.

N. Muthukumar of Olam Agri emphasizes the need for farm-level resilience to protect supply chains, noting that the company is implementing climate-smart rice programs in Thailand to support producers. This focus on the origin is echoed by KPMG's Ian Proudfoot, who identifies the potential for producers to abandon farming for more profitable land uses as a primary vulnerability in global food systems.

Beyond production, the leaders are advocating for a shift from basic food security to nutrition security to combat the triple burden of malnutrition—undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and obesity—with a specific focus on countries like Malaysia. To support these goals, experts identify artificial intelligence as a critical tool for accelerating biotechnological innovation, improving crop yields, and refining the nutritional profiles of food and feed ingredients.