Food evokes emotions. Food shapes nations and cultures. Food can be a source of conflict. Food riots are one of the oldest forms of people’s revolutions. 

Food production is a global business. The farmer and the fisherman have become industry workers. Focus on yield, science and technology detaches the obvious link between nature and the dinner table. What we today consider food is rapidly changing, and so are the ways we produce it. The climate is also changing and affecting our global food production. Processed food redefines what we think of as edible. A renewed focus on organic, or natural, food has emerged. What will fill our food baskets in the future and where will we grow it?

Is global justice and equity respected and encouraged in global food production and trade? Do people from the rich countries recognize a moral responsibility for the effects of climate change in the poor countries, imposed on them through the life-style of the rich?

16 and 17 October we explore global challenges from the vantage point of food and fury.

 

Programme:

Tuesday 16 October

Contested Food and Nutrition

Chair: Dr Nefissa Naguib

Food riots are one of the oldest forms of people’s revolutions. For Napoleon the price of bread was one of the most critical questions he asked every morning. He knew that bread determines the pulse of France and the spirit of her population. More recent “Pasta Protests”, “Bread Riots”, “Rice Protests”, “Morning Coffee riots” are demands for food sovereignty and justice.  People´s outrage is not simply about the price of food, it is a much more complex phenomenon about human struggle, political economy and social justice. This session explores the diverse ways that people draw on food in framing their demands for social and political justice and the relationship between food and health. Researchers will discuss how food is a key subject of worldwide concern. 


10:00     
Welcome
CMI Director Ottar Mæstad, UiB Global Director Gro Therese Lie and Senior Researcher, CMI, Nefissa Naguib

10:15
Key Note Address: Food and Fury
Dr Michael Heasman

Michael Heasman who is Associate Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark,  has worked in the area of food and nutrition policy for more than 25 years as a social science researcher, teacher, writer, and consultant.

11:15
Break

11:30
Food-Driven Social Mobilization:  A turning point of global development?
Dr Thor Øyvind Jensen

Thor Øyvind Jensen is Associate Professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen

12:30
Lunch

13:00
Discussion by the panelists

14:15
Fruit

14:30
You are what you eat! Food and diet in an evolutionary perspective
Professor Jan Van den Broeck

Jan Van den Broeck is a professor at the Centre for International Health, University of Bergen

15:15
Discussion

16:00
Reception

 

Wednesday 17 October
Food and Ethics: Filling tomorrow’s food basket

Chair: Dr Matthias Kaiser

Director of the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen.

The climate is changing. This both affects, and is affected by, global food production. Hunger is increasing in many parts of the world, while others are fighting obesity and other food-related health issues. The world population keeps growing, and the rich North consumes a disproportionate amount of the worlds’ food yield.  Is global justice and equity respected and encouraged in global food production and trade? Do people from rich countries recognise a moral responsibility for the effects of climate change in poor countries? Ethical and political consumerism is on the rise in industrialised countries, but so is the development of processed and GM-food products. What will the food basket of tomorrow look like? Will there be many kinds of baskets, with local and global designs? Will it be healthy, affordable and sustainable, or will it further contribute to the exploitation of natural resources, the aggravation of conflicts between rich and poor, and the continuation of an unsustainable lifestyle?

10:00
Introduction
Dr Matthias Kaiser

10:20
Key Note Address: Food Futures - Agriculture in National and Global Contexts  
Dr Shailaja Fennell

 

11:20
Break 

11:30
Climate change: Effects on agriculture and food production
Professor Tore Furevik

 

Tore Furevik is a professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Bergen and Deputy Director at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research

11:45
Climate change: Effects on ocean productivity and fisheries

Dr Svein Sundby

Svein Sundby is a researcher at the Institute for Marine Research and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research

12:00
Issues and Challenges to Sustain Aquaculture Production in Asia - From Rhetoric to A Committed Plan of Action 
Dr Ambekar Eknath

12:15
The world food system at the limits?
Dr Hans Peter Andersen

Hans Peter Andersen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Geography at the University of Bergen

12:30
Aquatic Food Ethics 
Scott Bremer

Scott Bremer is a Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen

12:45
Break 

13:00
Discussion 

14:30
Lunch