Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in the Circumpolar North

Event Dates
2013-09-29 - 2013-10-03
Location
Girdwood, Alaska

Organizers announce that the 8th Circumpolar Agricultural Conference and the Univeristy of the Arctic Inaugural Northern Food Summit will be held 29 September 2013 - 3 October 2013. They will be convened at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska.

The theme of the conference and summit is "Advancing food security and sustainable agriculture in the circumpolar north; Building an integrated vision, creating a process for sustainable food security in northern communities." This event adopts the perspective that food security is a driver to community development and sustainability, and takes a balanced approach between traditional subsistence natural resource access and agricultural production. Thus, rather than a commodity-specific conference, it will bridge diverse but common key areas to support, strengthen, and expand the food resources and northern community development. The summit will discuss the barriers/challenges and develop solutions/opportunities across key critical areas such as food production, food access and distribution systems, sustainable practices, land use planning, and food policy and safety issues.

Abstracts for posters relevant to all aspects of circumpolar agriculture and food security in the north are welcome. The conference will consist of invited plenary talks organized around featured topics followed by formal poster sessions where presenters will provide a brief overview of the content and purpose of their poster to organized groups. The discussion generated will continue into a series of breakout sessions organized around the following four objectives, which are detailed on the conference website.

Abstract submission deadline: Wednesday, 1 May 2013.