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School of Geography and the Environment

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Food Security and Environmental Change: Linking Science, Development and Policy for Adaptation

An International Conference: 2-4 April 2008, University of Oxford, UK

Please see conference website for full details

Conference Media

During the conference Professor Diana Liverman spoke on BBC Radio 4's Today programme and was interviewed by the BBC World Service. The conference also recieved some attention from the written press including:

View press release: International experts discuss food security in the face of climate change, 2 April 2008

Scope of the conference

There is growing concern that Global Environmental Change (GEC) will further complicate achieving food security, particularly for more vulnerable sections of society. There is also concern that meeting society's rising demand for food will further degrade the environment which may, in turn, further undermine the food systems on which food security is based.

These issues are the focus of the international, interdisciplinary research project "Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS)" which is aimed at determining strategies to cope with the impacts of GEC on food systems and assessing the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of adaptive responses aimed at improving food security.

This conference will bring together the research and policy communities addressing food security, environmental change and food policy to promote wider international discussion on these issues and to progress the joint development of adaptation options by:

  • Presenting and discussing research on GEC, food security and food systems, and decision support dialogues from the broad international community.
  • Presenting and discussing findings from conceptual and regional research supported by the GECAFS project.
  • Bringing together scientists and policy makers from diverse backgrounds to forge new partnerships

Conference Sessions

  • Case studies of food system vulnerability to global environmental change in the context of multiple stresses
  • Environmental change and the meanings of food
  • Improving climate forecasting for food security research
  • Responses of food system activists to climate change
  • Developing adaptation options and building adaptive capacity for food systems
  • Water and food security in the future
  • Trade and market reform for food system adaptation
  • Managing embodied greenhouse gas emissions in food
  • Managing cross-scale interactions of food systems and GEC
  • Governance of food systems
  • Regional scenarios of food systems and environmental change
  • Biofuels and food security
  • Resilience of food systems
  • Tradeoffs between ecosystem services, food security and economic growth
  • Workshop on Promoting dialogues for linking knowledge and action on food systems and GEC
  • European food systems in a changing world
  • Food industry strategies for GEC adaptation and mitigation
  • Institutional and policy challenges for agroecosystem management in relation to food security
  • Workshop on Analysis of the international environmental assessments and food security
  • Workshop on Decision Support for food security
  • Workshop on Managing conflicts relating to food security and environmental change

For more information on the conference, please see the conference website