I was in Paris today (‘Again’ as my kids exclaimed) for a major conference, jointly organised by the EESC and the French national Economic, Environmental and Social Council on the topic of  ‘The EU facing the global food challenge: the contribution of organised civil society.’ I’ll bring you more about the conference on this post in the near future. There were three excellent set´piece speeches from the French EESC President, Jacques Dermagne, Michel Barnier (this time a pre´recorded speech) and our own EESC President, Mario Sepi (picture above). The terrible underlying conclusion all speakers reached is that the world is already suffering from a major food crisis, but we are distracted at the moment by the financial crisis.