Food security under the spotlight at BRICS symposium

20-24 April 2014. Academics from BRICS countries' Brazil, China and South Africa are gathering at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) this week to focus on transformation in global food systems.

The BRICS Initiative for Critical Agrarian Studies (BICAS) is collaborating with several initiatives and institutions The organizers are the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape, in partnership with the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), with the support of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation. The 2015 conference builds on the growing body of research in the area of critical agrarian studies, including the literature on land grabs that has been promoted by the Land Deal Politics Initiative (LDPI).

The conference is aimed at examining the role of the three countries in transforming the agricultural systems in the African, South American and South East Asian regions and focuses on Agrarian land reform policies within the BRICS bloc and the need to increase food production. Delegates are expected to meet small scale farmers producing crops for local markets at the end of the four-day conference.

This conference follows on initial meetings of a founding BICAS collective in Beijing in 2013 and Brasilia in 2014 and the highly successful international academic conferences organized by LDPI in 2011 at IDS, University of Sussex, UK and in 2012 at Cornell University, New York, USA.