Dear National Delegates, Dear Institutional Members Representatives, Dear Corporate Members Representatives, Dear ICC Academy Members, Dear Secretary General, Dear Acting Deputy Secretary General, Dear ICC Team in Vienna,
it is now my turn to be ICC President.
I feel very honoured and thrilled at the start of my mandate.
I believe in cereals.
They are part of my every day life, as, I imagine, for most, if not all, of you. In the country where I come from, Italy, we eat cereals at breakfast, lunch and dinner and, moreover, I deal with cereals at work!
What I really like about cereals is the idea that everywhere in the world, from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere, from East to West, they are at the base of the daily diet of all human populations. Cereals are truly global.
This also means that they carry many values: genetical, agricultural, commercial, nutritional, and cultural values. So, the protection of cereals and their values is a great opportunity to try and improve the actual quality of life worldwide.
How can this be achieved? There are, in my view, several ways and they can all take advantage of the existence of ICC, this great international organization which, at present, brings together representatives of many countries worldwide.
The following objectives can therefore be pursued by means of ICC:
- to organize scientific events and activities aimed at spreading the culture of quality “from farm to fork” in the interest of all the cereal food chain actors, i.e. breeders, growers, dealers, products manufacturers, equipment manufacturers and most of all consumers;
- to study production and processing systems which are driven by the concept of sustainability
- to exploit the key role of ICC as publisher of international standard methods to establish common standards of different levels of complexity to cater for the different needs of different countries which might have different levels of development;
- to favour and encourage the application of hi-tech science for the development of simple, rapid, easy to use kits that can be applied widely for the screening of quality parameters and the improvement of the cereal sectors also in developing countries.
It will be easier to reach the above mentioned objectives if the following actions are also taken:
- to improve and find ways to encourage participation of more countries to ICC for an effective exchange of knowledge and for cross pollination between different knowledge levels and cultures;
- to pay more attention to cereals other than wheat;
- to promote integration between all actors of the cereal food chain;
- to multiply initiatives aimed at spreading knowledge of the existence of the Association itself and its missions also within member countries along with initiatives aimed at encouraging corporate members’ and young scientists’ participation;
- to reinforce and possibly enhance ICC influence and authoritativeness upon decision making or consultative bodies at the multinational level (i.e. European Food Safety Authority, FAO, etc.);
- to strengthen scientific and technical cooperation with international or national organizations working in the same or related fields as ICC (AACC, AOAC, ISO, UNIDO, etc.).
Having served as National Delegate for Italy and as Member of the Technical and Executive Committees for several years, I got to know ICC and his community and, for this reason, I am looking at the future with confidence and enthusiasm because I trust that I shall have the opportunity to preside a group of competent, fair, supportive and committed people.
In this regard I wish to thank my near Predecessors as ICC President, in particular John Taylor, Concha Collar and Stan Cauvain whom I got to know better and who have given a lot of their time and efforts for the well-being of the Association. They are a great example for me to follow!
Special thanks also go to our Secretary General, Roland Poms, who has always tried and exploited new opportunities for ICC growth and visibility, to our new Acting Deputy Secretary General, who is performing really well and to all the great ICC team at the Head Office in Vienna.
ICC needs the help, support, ideas of all its Members to grow and thrive in the age of globalisation. Therefore I encourage all of you to consider yourselves as active members of the ICC family and to feel free to let ICC know about your opinions, initiatives, experiences, wishes and anything you deem useful for the ICC furtherance.
I shall always be pleased to hear from you and I look forward to working with you all.
Marina Carcea
Rome, Italy
January 2011
Dear Members of the ICC Family,
