Biodiversity, Food, and Nutrition Amid Migration, Urbanization, and Climate Change

This symposium features a keynote presentation of new, original research on the dynamics and potential strengthening of biodiversity and food-nutrition (SDG2) amid the drivers and change processes of migration, urbanization, and climate change.
This presentation will draw on stakeholder meetings conducted in Peru in January 2023 and Spain in September 2022. The keynote presentation is focused on research advances on interrelated sub-projects:

(1) historical dynamics of colonial geographies of biodiversity in food and agriculture
(agrobiodiversity) entwined with monocropping and migration/urbanization in the Mediterranean and Latin America;
(2) analysis of resilience and its limits among three groups of indigenous smallholder peasants in Peru (30 rural communities in 3 geographic landscapes) involving agrobiodiversity and food-nutrition dynamics related to migration, urbanization, and climate change during the COVID pandemic and contributing to current political conflict;
(3) description of a collection of 1200 recipes of food and beverages sampled in the aforementioned project, with focus on recipe and biodiversity characterization, geographic interactions, potential recipe-structure features, and influences of food system transformation; and
(4) urban-migration influences on foodway continuity and change, including recipes, based on a study of urban migrants to the city of Lima, Peru, who are networked to the specific families and areas in the above studies.

Expert interventions will be delivered by leading, international scientific researchers and scholars on the theme of human-environment interactions of biodiversity in food and agriculture in contexts of dynamic change as well as local knowledge and closely related themes.

PROGRAMME & SPEAKERS

14:00 – 14:15 Introduction

Karl Zimmerer, Professor of Environment-Society Geography, Rural Sociology, and Ecology, Pennsylvania State University, USA & 2022-2023 MAK’IT Fellow

Patrick Caron, Director, Montpellier Advanced Knowledge Institute on Transitions (MAK’IT), France

14:15 – 15:00 MAK’IT Research Seminar Presentation: “Resilience and Crisis in the Plantationocene: Biodiversity, Food, and Nutrition amid Migration and Urbanization”

Karl Zimmerer, Professor of Environment-Society Geography, Rural Sociology, and Ecology, Pennsylvania State University, USA & 2022-2023 MAK’IT Fellow

Thematic consultants for this seminar presentation: Bibiana Bilbao, Professor of Environmental Studies, Simón Bolívar University, Venezuela; Brian Dowd-Uribe, University of San Francisco, USA; Scott Prudham, Department of Geography and Planning and School of the Environment, University of Toronto, Canada; Sergio Schneider, Professor of Sociology of Rural Development and Food Studies, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Andrea Sosa, National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) & National University of San Martín, Argentina.

15:00 – 15:20 Discussant

Sophie Caillon, Principal Researcher, Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France

15:20 – 15:45 Q&As

Moderator: Kenneth MacDonald, Department of Human Geography and Department of Global Development Studies, University of Toronto, Canada

15:45 – 16:00 Coffee break

16:00 – 16:20 “Insights on Mediterranean Agrobiodiversity, Migrations, Biocultural Resilience and Adaptation”

Yildiz Aumeeruddy-Thomas, Principal Researcher, Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE), National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France

16:20 – 16:40 “Crop Diversity, Farmer’s Practices and Resilience”

Christian Leclerc, Principal Researcher, Genetic Improvement and Adaptation of
Mediterranean and Tropical Plants Institute (AGAP), Center for International Research and Development (CIRAD), France

16:40 – 17:00 “A Larger View of Agrobiodiversity: Animal pollination and the Linkages among Forests, Agriculture, People and Food”

Marcela Cely-Santos, Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute and Colectivo Abejas Vivas (Colombia) and the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, Tulane University, United States

17:00 – 17:20 “Important Issues and Ideas on the Science-Policy Interface”

Sélim Louafi, Deputy Director for Research and Strategy, French Center for International Research and Development (CIRAD), France

17:20 – 18:00 Q&As

18:00 – 19:00 Cocktail reception