John Crawford (right) discussing his work at the recent TEDxSydney 2012.
It was impossible to miss the University of Sydney's participation with TEDxSydney. The thousand participants in the weekend's festival of ideas were confronted with some impressive installations in the theatre's foyer: a huge pile of earth, a cage of locusts and a motor vehicle littered with discarded fast food packing. As Professor John Crawford explained, these represented the world's big challenges in the 21st century - soil security, overeating and obesity. "If we continue with current agricultural practices, there will be no topsoil left on the planet in 50 years' time. And for the first time in human history more people in the planet are suffering the diseases of overnutrition than undernutrition. A staggering 1.6 billion are overweight or obese. "The solutions to all these problems are interconnected," he told the lunchtime crowd.
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