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Parallel session descriptions (preliminary)
- Case studies of food system vulnerability to global
environmental change in the context of multiple stressors:
This session will feature empirical case studies describing
how food systems are or become vulnerable to global environmental
change, given the other multiple stresses that affect food
systems. The importance of the session is to contribute to
the world-wide evidence base regarding food system vulnerability
and the key processes that give rise to it.
Convenor: Alison Misselhorn, South Africa
- Environmental change and the meanings of food: Food's value to human societies extends far beyond the nutritional and economic. This session invites papers examining how environmental change has affected particular societies or communities' cultural norms and social practices related to food (such as farming, hunting, commerce, cooking, and mealtimes) and also how food's meanings have perhaps shaped how such societies cope with the broader challenges it poses.
Convenor: Susanne Freidberg, USA
- Improving climate forecasting for food security research:
This session will discuss the recent advances in using climate
forecasts to inform decision making for agriculture and food
systems. These may include discussions of how to better address
user needs, as well as understanding the institutional context
in which food and agricultural decisions are made and the forecasts
will be applied/used.
Convenor: Molly Brown
- Panel Discussion on Responses of food system activists to climate change: This panel session will bring together activists working on sustainability in food systems to discuss responses to climate change, intersections with other social movements, and opportunities and barriers for civil society actions.
Convenor: Molly Anderson, USA
- Developing adaptation options and building adaptive
capacity for food systems: This session will invite
papers on formulating adaptation options for all aspects of
the food system to buffer them against the negative consequences
of global environmental change. This may include papers on
constraints or barriers to adaptation. We also welcome papers
which discuss how to foster the adaptive capacity of the various
actors in food systems.
Convenor: Polly Ericksen, GECAFS/UK
- Poster Discussion on Water and food security in the future: Water
and food security are inextricably intertwined, and it is widely
recognized that society must approach water management in new
ways due to problems of scarcity, pollution and competing demands.
This session welcomes papers on how to reconcile the demands
for water for food systems in the future, given projections of
global environmental change.
Convenors: Johan Rockstrom, SEI/Sweden and Thomas Downing, UK
- Trade and market reform for food system adaptation: Trade policy and market reforms are integral to the food security agenda. However, there has been less discussion of how trade and market policies will have to change so as to accommodate the projected impacts of global environmental change on food systems. IPCC AR4 Working Group II concludes that international trade will be critical to ensuring food security in the face of the regional imbalances in food production that climate change is projected to cause. This session welcomes papers discussing how trade and market reforms and policy can contribute to the adaptation of food systems to ensure food security in the future.
Convenor: David Schweikhardt, Michigan State University, USA
- Managing the embodied greenhouse gas emissions in food: Concern
over the ecological footprint of many food products has spawned
interest in estimating the carbon content embodied in food, with
the goal of decreasing the carbon emissions from the food chain.
However there are various challenges associated with measuring
as well as managing the carbon embodied in food. This session
will welcome papers on either aspect.
Convenor: Tara Garnett, FCRN, UK
- Managing cross-scale interactions within food systems: Changes that appear rational at one scale in the food system may undermine the way another scale works. For example, incentives created by international trading arrangements may influence farmers to specialize production on a small number of crops. This may lead to agro-ecosystems that are ecologically fragile to local problems. However, with rapid environmental as well as social change, the dynamics controlling food systems have shifted. Untangling these new dynamics across scales requires contributions from ecological and social sciences. This session welcomes studies that seek to explain the impacts and dynamics of cross-scale interactions in food systems.
Convenor: Evan Fraser, UK link
- Governance of food systems: Food system governance is fraught with economic, political and social tensions. Vulnerability to environmental change requires that environmental considerations also be considered in the governance debates, bringing with them new uncertainties, conflicts, and problems of accountability, allocation, access and agency. This session will explore approaches to food system governance, as well as studies that highlight some of the key governance challenges and issues that must be resolved to ensure food security in the face of environmental change.
Convenor: Frank Biermann, NL
- Regional scenarios of food systems and environmental change: This session will explore methods and examples for developing integrated regional scenarios of food system developments under alternative plausible futures. Topics may include participatory scenario building and stakeholder involvement in scenario building processes across geographical scales, methods for linking regional scenarios with scenarios developed at other scales, and examples of regional scenarios important for the analysis of food systems and environmental change interactions.
Convenor: Monika Zurek, FAO
- Biofuels and food security: The recent surge
of interest in developing biofuels has excited proponents of
agricultural development and environmental sustainability. However,
the potential consequences of biofuels for food security have
not been carefully examined. This session invites papers which
look at the challenges that a surge in biofuels may pose for
local as well as global food security.
Convenor: Steve Wiggins, ODI, UK
- Resilience of food systems: Approaches to
manage resilience of coupled or co-evolved human-environment
systems such as food systems are intrinsically appealing. However,
there are few examples of what might constitute a resilient food
system, and even fewer of how we might move from an undesirable
food system to one that is both desirable and resilient. This
session welcomes case studies which seek to explain or document
food system resilience, as well as papers which contemplate the
difficulties that managing resilience in food systems poses.
Convenor: Craig Miller, Aus
- Tradeoffs between ecosystem services,
food security and economic growth. These tradeoffs
are at the heart of important policy choices, yet in many cases
there is insufficient analysis or recognition of them. In
this session, presentations will cover empirical studies seeking
to quantify these tradeoffs and the policy choices they require
at local, regional and/or global levels.
Convenor: Keith Wiebe, FAO
- Workshop on Promoting dialogues for linking knowledge
and action on food systems and global environmental change:
This workshop will invite a range of practitioners with experience
or interest in linking science and policy to manage food systems
in the face of global environmental change.
Convenor: Jill Jaeger, Austria - WORKSHOP WITHDRAWN
- Workshop on ESF/COST Forward Look on “European Food
Systems in a Changing World”: This workshop will discuss
results from this project and plan next steps for European
research.
Convenor: Rudy Rabbinge, NL
- Panel Discussion on Food industry strategies for global environmental change
adaptation and mitigation: This session will bring
together representatives from agri-business, food processing
and food retailing, to talk about the innovative ways in which
their sectors are responding to the challenges posed by climate
and other environmental change.
Convenor: Tom Macmillan, Food Ethics Council, UK
- Institutional and policy challenges for agroecosystem management in relation to food security: Integrated natural resource
management is a promising concept for agro-ecosystem management.
However, it requires attention to a range of institutional
and policy issues, particularly given the additional uncertainties
that global environmental change will bring. This session will
feature studies which have focused on the role of institutions
and policies to manage agro-ecosystems and enhance food security
in the face of ongoing change.
Convenor: Brent Swallow, Canada/World Agroforestry Centre
- Workshop on Analysis of international environmental
assessments and food security: This will follow on
from a six month collaborative exercise examining how four
international environmental assessments (MA, IPCC AR4, IAASTD
and GEO4) covered the impact of global environmental change
on food security. This workshop will review these findings
and discuss how the international assessment community might
move forward to more effectively evaluate food system/global
environmental change interactions, based upon the available
scientific knowledge.
Convenor: Stanley Wood, UK/IFPRI
- Decision support for food security:
Although making decisions about food security is increasingly
complex, insufficient work has been done to consider what would
constitute more effective decision support tools for policy makers.
This workshop will bring together experts and practitioners to
brainstorm about developing enhanced decision support for helping
to ensure food security in the face of global environmental change.
Convenor: Jim Jones, USA
- Managing conflicts related to food security
and environmental change: Sustaining food security
in a future of global environmental change will require cooperation
among disparate stakeholders. This workshop will centre on
a discussion of how approaches to environmental security and
peace may help stakeholders in the food security arena.
Convenor: TBA
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