Yale University will be organising the “Yale Food Systems Symposium”, to take place 18-19 October 2013 at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

The symposium addresses the complex ecological and socio-economic processes of food production, consumption, climate change and rapid urbanisation.

The conveners are now calling for abstracts and workshop proposals before 01 July 2013 on these topics:

• Climate change and the food system
• Urbanisation, land use change, and food systems planning
• Politics, policies, and governance across scales
• Agricultural biodiversity and issues of genetic property
• Sustainable intensification, multi-functional agriculture
• Urban-rural linkages
• Public and market-based approaches to regulating the food system
• Alternative food networks
• The right to food, food justice, and food sovereignty movements
• Industrial ecology approaches to food systems analysis
• Sustainable diets and assessing and forecasting nutrition trends
• Sustainable supply chains
• University-community partnerships

Please visit the official symposium website for more information.

First International Conference on Global Food Security

Elsevier, in partnership with European Society for Agronomy and Wageningen University, will be organising the “First International Conference on Global Food Security“, from 29 September to 2 October 2013 in Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands.

The conference aims to address the issues of food production, access, and the trade-offs between competing environmental, economic or social objectives.

The conveners are now calling for abstract submission for oral and poster presentations before 10 May 2013 on these topics:

• Global and local analyses of food security
• Enabling policies for local and global food security
• Sustainable intensification of food production systems
• Novel ways of feeding 9 billion people
• Learning from the past to understand the future
• Land sparing, land sharing and trade-offs
• Agricultural production as feedstock for renewables
• Lost harvest and wasted food
• Nutritional security
• Labelling, certifying and striving for quality and sustainability of food production

Please visit the official conference website for more information.

International Symposium on Agrobiodiversity for Sustainable Development

Bioversity International and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences will be organising the ”International Symposium on Agrobiodiversity for Sustainable Development”,  03-04 June 2013 in Beijing, China.

The symposium will focus on the important role of agricultural biodiversity in agroecological intensification for supporting productive and resilient farming systems to improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The symposium will also aim to understand the local cultural values in enhancing productivity through the use of traditional crop varieties, traditional farming practices and climate change response strategies.

Please read this PDF document or contact the organising committee directly at email hidden; JavaScript is required for more information. Participants need to submit this registration form to the organisers before 30 April 2013. The local costs of accommodation and food will be covered by the organisers for registered participants presenting scientific posters.

Proceedings of the “2nd International Symposium on Underutilised Plant Species: Crops for the Future – Beyond Food Security”

We are pleased to announce that the proceedings of the “2^nd International Symposium on Underutilised Plant Species: Crops for the Future – Beyond Food Security” has been published by Acta Horticulturae publication of International Society for Horticultural Sciences (ISHS) on 31 March 2013.

The symposium was held on 27 June-01 July 2011 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was organised by Crops for the Future Research Centre, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus under the auspices of ISHS. The event was co-convened and supported by Crops for the Future, Bioversity International, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, Boustead Holdings Berhad, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Kirkhouse Trust, British Council and Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa.

The follow-up to this symposium is the coming “3rd International Conference on Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS)” that will take place on 23-25 September 2013, in Accra, Ghana. Please visit the official conference website for more information. Interested participants are encouraged to sign up for the conference newsletter to receive updates on the development of this conference.

Archived postings of the symposium in the past:

http://www.cropsforthefuture.org/2011/08/crops-for-the-future-symposium-2011-introduction/

http://www.cropsforthefuture.org/2010/09/2nd-international-symposium-on-underutilised-plant-species-2/

Together with a number of international and Spanish partners, CFF co-organised  the “International Seminar Crops for the XXI Century”, held last December in Cordoba, Spain. The seminar resulted in the Cordoba Declaration, which calls for more diversity in agricultural and food systems, principally through greater use of neglected and underutilised species (NUS). Specifically the declaration proposes action along these lines:

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  Farmers threshing quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), near Puno, Peru.

  Improving education and awareness to ensure that the values of a much wider range of NUS are recognized by all society;

• Increasing recognition and support for small scale and family farmers, women and men, in maintaining diversified and resilient agricultural systems;
• Facilitating the conservation, access, availability, use and exchange of seeds by farmers;
• Promoting formal and informal research and plant breeding to realize the full potential of NUS;
• Improving access to markets and stimulating demand for a wider range of NUS, while ensuring that benefits are shared fairly.