World Food System Conference 2015

21-26 June 2015. Zurich, Switzerland. This conference highlighted solution-focused, interdisciplinary, and system-oriented research and practice addressing how to feed the world while considering human health, the environment, and social well-being.

The aim was to bring together researchers and other food system stakeholders to exchange ideas, methodologies, success stories, and lessons learned. The conference

Sessions highlighted innovative research both within and at the intersections of four thematic focus areas (Sustainable Production Systems, Food for Health, Resilient Food Markets, and Whole Food System Approaches) offered a space for professional, empirically-driven dialogue that encouraged experts to interact across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

The conference incorporated a workshop in which the participants explored how collaborative work on different aspects of the food system can be integrated under a comprehensive framework.

The conference was organized around the following thematic focus areas and their intersections:

1. Sustainable Production Systems (establishing sustainable food production systems that are resilient in the face of increasing perturbations)
2. Food for Health (design and processing for safe, accessible, high quality and healthy food and food products)
3. Resilient Food Markets (creating and connecting to effective food markets that create value for all stakeholders)
4. Whole Food System Approaches (tools, methods, frameworks designed to take a systems approach)

Extracts from the programme:

• Gunda Zuellich, Millennium Institute Competing agricultural paradigms to feed a growing population in Kenya – An integrated system approach
• Jonas Jörin, ETH Zurich and Ruthie Musker , ETH Zurich / UC Davis Framing resilience in the context of tef in Ethiopia
• Jessica Agnew, University of Guelph The role of business in sustainably improving the nutritional status of the poor Kalpana Beesabathuni, Sight and Life Agricultural value chain analysis for developing affordable nutritious foods for women in Ghana
• Emmanuel Frossard, ETH Zurich Biophysical, institutional and economic drivers of sustainable soil use in yam systems for improved food security in West Africa (YAMSYS)
• Feriha Mugisha Mukuve, University of Cambridge Scale variability of water, land, and energy resource interactions in the food system in Uganda
• Silas Okech-Ongudi, Egerton University Determinants of consumers’ choice and potential willingness to pay higher prices for biofortified pearl millet products in Kenya Conrd Murendo, Georg August University Göttingen Impact of mobile money technology on household food security in Uganda
• Irene Kadzere, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Postharvest Management: Potential challenges for smallholder organic farmers in Kenya
• Kate Scow, University of California, Davis Participatory research to identify irrigation technologies for horticulture for women and smallholder farmers in Eastern Uganda 
• Christian Schader, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) The role of human-edible components in livestock feed for future food security, the environment and human diets
• Gurbir Bhullar, Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) Securing the food system together: Innovation development with the farmer, for the farmer, by the farmer
• Beth Hoffman, University of San Francisco Driving sustainability or producing anxiety: The use of media in mobilizing consumers Gail Feenstra, University of California, Davis Using values-based supply chains to engage communities

Related:

Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (factsheet: PDF, 91 KB). The overall goal of the programme is to support excellent scientific research that contributes towards the solution of global problems.

Funded Food Security research: (28 May 2013 Call for proposals ; January 2014 Invitation to submit full proposals ; October 2014 Earliest start of research ; 2020 Completion of research projects). The emphasis of this thematic research module is therefore on the improvement of agricultural production and innovation systems in view of fostering a political, economic and societal framework for global food security.

1. Building soil fertility: Farmer-driven organic resource management to build soil fertility: Ghana, Mali, Kenya, Zambia
2. Sustainable yam cropping Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso
3. Insects as feed Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso
4. Gender and the right to food Cambodia, Ghana
5. Food sustainability Kenya, Bolivia

Funded Ecosystems research: (28 May 2013 Call for proposals ; January 2014 Invitation to submit full proposals ; October 2014 Earliest start of research ; 2020 Completion of research projects)

1. Oil Palm Adaptive Landscapes Cameroon, Colombia, Indonesia
2. Telecoupled landscapes Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Madagascar
3. Invasive species Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania