Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies, Politécnico de Portalegre, Portalegre, Portugal, October 02 - 04, 2024. Special Focus—Place Matters: The Valorization of Cultural, Gastronomic, and Territorial Heritage

Theme 1: Food Production and Sustainability

Exploring the environmental conditions of food production.

• Principles and practices of sustainable agriculture
• The green revolution
• The new green revolution
• Genetically modified foods
• Organic foods
• Natural disasters and the food supply
• Food production and the water supply
• Diversion of foods into biofuels
• Implications of transitions with growing affluence from grains, legumes and pulses, to meat and dairy
• Agricultural fossil fuel use and rising energy costs
• Soil depletion, exhaustion, erosion and fertilizers; and remedies
• Agricultural land availability and ‘peak food’
• Farmland preservation
• Urban agriculture
• Agriculture and deforestation
• Agricultural greenhouse gases and climate change; and remedies in agricultural carbon sequestration
• Hydroponic and low-carbon agriculture
• Farm originated and feedlot pollution
• Animal welfare
• Sustainability of wild fisheries and other wild food sources
• The environmental impact of seafood farms
• Waste management in food production and environmental sustainability
• The global food market
• Large scale and global agribusiness: efficiencies, offerings and deficiencies
• Community food security
• Sustainable food communities
• The local food movement
• Economics of farmers markets and community co-ops
• Urban and rural food deserts
• Supply chains: just-in-time distribution, transportation and warehousing

Theme 2: Food, Nutrition, and Health

Investigating the interrelationships of nutrition and human health.

• Human nutritional and dietary needs
• The chemistry of food, nutrition and human energy
• Food contamination and food-borne illness
• Food safety assurance, risk analysis and regulation
• Growth hormones and antibiotics in food, and their effects on children
• Food and chronic disease: obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes
• Food poverty
• The socially equitable diet
• Food, nutrition and public health
• Nutrition labeling
• Processed and unprocessed foods: health implications
• Safe fruit and vegetable processing in a global market
• Genetically modified foods and food engineering
• Foods and nanotechnology
• Food flavors, the taste of food and preferences
• Biotechnology and today’s food
• Food and global health challenges
• Consumer trends and nutritional behaviors
• Nutrition and disease management and prevention
• Food and the wellness industry
• Eating disorders
• Vitamin supplements and medical needs
• Food marketing to children
• Ethnic foods and community nutrition

Theme 3: Food Politics, Policies, and Cultures

Exploring claims, controversies, positions, interests and values connected with food.

• Urbanization, population growth and the global food supply
• The political economy of food
• Food prices inflation and food scarcity
• Food supply, transportation and storage
• Free markets versus agricultural protectionism and subsidies
• Farm law and public financing
• The impacts of developed world trade barriers on the developing world
• Hunger and poverty: public policy in food and nutrition
• WHO policies on world nutrition
• Global food ethics
• Farmers’ organizations and movements
• Farm worker rights
• Fast food and slow food
• Celebrity and media chefs
• Consumer ‘taste’
• Vegetarian, vegan and other dietary systems
• ‘Ethnic’ and regional foods
• Food taboos: kosher, halal etc.
• The cultures of ‘the table’
• Food sociability
• Gendered home cooking patterns
• School and community food gardens
• The alternative food movement
• Food advertising and food media
• Food safety regulations and guidelines
• Food self-sufficiency and ‘food sovereignty’
• ‘Fair Trade’
• Animal rights and welfare initiatives
• Food sovereignty and free trade regimes
• Malnutrition and international food programs