LONDON, ENGLAND — Preparations are in the final stages for the International Grain Council’s (IGC) Grains Conference June 9 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, England.

The event provides opportunities for networking, with participants expected from nearly 50 countries. The conference program is full and varied, with 11 expert speakers confirmed across four sessions.  Simultaneous interpretation in six languages will be provided, while Q&A time will also be allocated. 

The event begins with presentations from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Abdolreza Abbassian and Rabobank’s Stefan Vogel on the global supply and demand outlook.  Lu Jung Bo from China’s State Administration of Grain is also scheduled to give a presentation. 
The second session sees a focus on environmental issues, with CGIAR’s Bruce Campbell and Jeremy Bird examining food and water security.  A special presentation on risk management by the CME Group’s Tim Andriesen precedes a full buffet lunch. 

A speech by Mohamed Belabdi, the general director of Algeria’s OAIC (the state grains agency) will provide useful insight from one of the world’s largest importers and is followed by an evaluation of the global shipping market by Guy Campbell from the Baltic Exchange. 

To end the day, a full session is devoted to the Black Sea region, with SovEcon’s Andrey Sizov, UkrAgroConsult’s Sergey Feofilov and Evgeniy Gan from Kazakhstan providing market intelligence.

For more details on how to register, please visit: http://www.igc.int/en/conference/programme.aspx