A public forum on how value-added traditional and new specialty food crops can be used to counter and manage diet-linked chronic diseases and associated global public health-related issues will be held on Monday, June 16, during the fifth annual conference of the American Council for Medicinally Active Plants.
The open forum, "Crops for Health as a Solution to Chronic Diseases: Strategic Vision for Agriculture and Global Food Security," is scheduled at 3 p.m. in the Crystal Ballroom of the Ramada Plaza Suites in Fargo.
The forum will feature presentations by Kalidas Shetty, professor of plant metabolism and food security and director of the Global Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture at NDSU; Mark Wahlqvist, professor emeritus at Monash University in Australia; and Donald Warne, associate professor and director of the Master of Public Health program at NDSU.
The American Council for Medicinally Active Plants conference will be held June 15-18. The council was established in 2009 to promote and foster research, development, production and conservation of medicinal, aromatic and other bioactive plants useful to human health. Members include scientists in the studies of agriculture, chemistry, food, science and safety, health, nutrition, molecular biology, manufacturing and commerce.
Topics that will be covered during the 2014 conference include:
- Functional foods and noncommunicable chronic diseases
- Role of phenolic phytochemicals in human health
- Improving the yield of plant bioactives: from agriculture production to postharvest stages
- Role of an indigenous diet in the prevention of noncommunicable chronic diseases
- Plant metabolic engineering strategies and emerging areas in nutraceutical research
- Production and commercialization of medicinal plants and herbs
- Development of pharmaceutical products from plants and herbs
More information about American Council for Medicinally Active Plants is available at www.acmap.org.
"The Global Institute of Food Security and International Agriculture at NDSU is supporting this conference," Shetty says. "GIFSIA will advance systems-based solutions to global food security challenges by integrating solutions to public health and agro-ecology challenges. This ACMAP conference is the first of a series of national and international conferences that GIFSIA will host and support to bring international expertise to NDSU to advance global and North Dakota food systems."
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.