The next step of National Geographic’s eight-month series on food ((Incidentally, compare and contrast NatGeo’s five-things-we-need-to-do about the food system with The Guardian’s 10-things-you-need-to-know. Seems to me the mainstream media are pretty much on the same page.)) seems to be to team up with FAO.
From May through December, FAO experts will provide perspective and data for National Geographic’s food coverage, which includes in-depth articles in the magazine each month and additional features on the NatGeoFood.com website. Both organizations will share content and participate in related events to help educate and promote awareness about hunger and nutrition.
The first such event is a panel discussion today — Food: A Forum — at National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. But that’s not all:
The panel discussion will be followed by a two-day Future of Food Hackathon May 3 and 4, during which scientists, data journalists and programmers will develop apps and tools to address solutions for feeding the planet by exploring broad FAO data sets that shed light on food distribution, transportation, costs and environmental legacy over the last 50 years.
Will they talk to Colin Khoury of CIAT, whose recent paper on the globalization of diets was based on FAO data? ((ICRISAT’s DG seems to have read the paper, by the way.)) Would be interesting to know whether NatGeo’s plans for its food series include a bit more collaboration with CGIAR — that is, people like Colin — than the admittedly impressive photo essay on Finding the Faces of Farmers. Finding the Faces of CGIAR Genebankers, anyone?