8th International Conference on Food Studies, University of British Columbia - Vancouver (Canada) 25–26 October 2018

Entre os dias 25 e 26 de Outubro de 2018 acontece a 8ª Conferência Internacional sobre Estudos de Alimentação na University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canadá). O evento é organizado pela Rede de Pesquisa em Estudos da Alimentação (Food Studies Research Network) fundada em 2011. Neste ano a conferência tem como objetivo discutir a sustentabilidade do nosso sistema alimentar. Confia abaixo mais informações e o link da chamada de propostas para comunicações:

 

How sustainable is our current food system?

Access to affordable and quality food is one of the key challenges of our time - to feed a growing world population, to feed it adequately and to feed it using sustainable production practices. Food production entails intensive and extensive relationships with the natural environment. Many of the world’s key environmental problems today are related to agricultural practices. Agriculture and food industries are also uniquely positioned to make a constructive contribution towards efforts designed to address these problems.

How sustainable is our current food system? It takes 160 liters of oil to create a tonne of corn in the United States. One kilo of beef takes 8-15 kilos of grain in feedlot production, requires 10,000 liters of water, generates 35 kilos of greenhouse gasses, and creates feedlot pollutants which need to be disposed of responsibly. There is growing public concern for the welfare of feedlot animals and birds, the use of antibiotics in feed and the food values of meats grown under these conditions. Agriculture is also the largest single user of fresh water, accounting for 75% of current human water use. In many parts of the world we are on the verge of a water crisis, exacerbated in places by climate change. Meanwhile, lengthening food supply chains extend the carbon footprint, and centralized just-in-time production creates new food vulnerabilities.

Concern is also raised about the impacts of rising energy costs, the diversion of foods into biofuel production, soil depletion and exhaustion, chemical fertilizers, encroachments of onto farming land for residential and commercial uses, deforestation as more agricultural land is sought, depletion of wild food sources such as fish, and fresh water crises … to mention just a few critical issues raised by today’s food systems.

In the meantime, our food needs are not standing still. It is estimated that food production will need to rise 50% in the next 20 years to cater for an increased global population and changing habits of food consumption with more people are eating increased quantities of meat and dairy. This not only has environmental consequences; the resultant food price inflation also has negative consequences measured in terms of its social sustainability.

In this context, some commentators have even started to speak of ‘peak food’ when the earth’s food-producing capacities are stretched beyond their limits.

What might be done? How might a sector which has often become part of the problem, become a pivotal player in finding solutions? How might we create sustainable food ecosystems? How might we develop low-carbon agriculture? Indeed, how can food systems assist in carbon sequestration? How can we use water less wastefully? How can we improve animal welfare? How can we change eating habits so they are both more healthy and also use our natural resources to best effect in a more equitable global food system?

We can only answer questions that are so large with a new green revolution, qualitatively different from the green revolution of the twentieth century, and in its own way potentially just as transformative.

 

THEMES

THEME 1: FOOD PRODUCTION AND SUSTAINABILITY
THEME 2: FOOD, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH
THEME 3: FOOD POLITICS, POLICIES, AND CULTURES

 

Clique na imagem para acessar o link do Call for Papers: