AK Agri-Food Geographies – Inaugural meeting on 21-22 April 2022 in Vechta (hybrid)
AK Agri-Food Geographies – Inaugural meeting on 21-22 April 2022 in Vechta (hybrid)
Following a number of preparatory meetings over the past months, we are pleased to invite you to the inaugural meeting of the new AK Agri-Food Geographies (within the DGfG).
Food is a basic need of human existence and a phenomenon that connects a range of dimensions related to human lives and livelihoods, and their natural environment (human-environment-nexus). In light of increasing debates around sustainability transformations on different scales, food has received enormous scientific attention in recent years. This is true also for geographic research, where the topic has traditionally played a significant role in various sub-disciplines.
This first meeting will provide a platform for geographers and scholars from related disciplines interested quite broadly in the makings and consequences of contemporary global food systems. Our starting point is the present structuring of current global food production and consumption systems, which remain inconsistent with the promotion of healthy and sustainable diets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Topics for potential consideration include (but are not limited to):
- How are the food systems organised spatially? How are sites of production, provisioning and consumption connected, and by whom?
- How are food systems scaled, and what are their environmental, social, cultural and economic consequences? Localism has been highlighted as a scalar response to contradictions in food systems, but how is this enacted, by whom and with what impacts?
- How is farming being reorganised and reinserted within global food systems? And how does that play out on the practices and livelihoods / lifestyles of food producers?
- What does the future hold for global food systems given current and future climate trajectories?
- How has Covid-19 affected food and nutrition security at different geographical scales?
The meeting will take place at the University of Vechta and online alike (hybrid format). The inaugural general meeting for (potential) members will be held on 21 April (late afternoon/evening), and the scientific programme is scheduled for 22 April 2022.
Please submit your abstract of 200-300 words to Prof. Dr. Amelie Bernzen (amelie.bernzen@uni-vechta.de) and Natalia Kerker (Natalia.kerker@uni-vechta.de) by 03 April 2022. You are welcome to present your work in German or English. Registration deadline for participants who would like to attend in person without presenting is the same. Registrations for purely digital participation without presenting are welcome until 19 April. There is a registration fee of EUR 20 for those participating on-site (including lunch/snacks/drinks).
You can also email us if you are interested in subscribing to the mailing list of the AK Agri-Food Geographies.
Amelie Bernzen, Judith Bopp, Franziska Czernik (Universität Vechta)
Anika Trebbin (Thünen Institut, Braunschweig)
Doris Schmied (Universität Bayreuth)