6th Global Food Security Conference

Zero hunger and resilient food systems in an uncertain world

19-22 April 2027 | Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands

Join us for the 6th Global Food Security Conference

The conference aims at showcasing and discussing scientific evidence on challenges and solutions for food and nutrition security in a multidimensional perspective. Special attention goes to resilience, sustainability and agency in relation to food systems. We recognize the importance of a systemic perspectives in addressing the challenge of zero hunger. The performance of the agricultural sector is no longer a guarantee for food security and nutrition at the level of the household, community, municipality or country across low-, middle-, and high-income regions. Alternatively, there is an urgent need to understand and invest in adaptable food systems, which requires intensive dialogue and interactions between all actors involved.

We welcome scientists from academia, stakeholders from public and private sectors, industry, civil society and government. We also welcome expert professionals from the realms of policy, civil society, industry, agriculture and food sector actors/professionals, and young professionals. In addition to exchanges on the latest insights from inter- and transdisciplinary science, we create a platform for dialogue between stakeholder groups with different interests, with space to deepen insight around current controversies and power asymmetries.

Conference themes

Through six themes, the conference aims to present a coherent framework for advancing knowledge on global food security. The conference themes are transversal to the six-dimensional framework of food security (HLPE, 2020) and combine understanding food security and resilience (Béné & Devereux, 2023) with action orientation (Schneider et al., 2025). They are interconnected through a progression from technological and structural enablers to socio-political empowerment, with reflective science as the core ensuring equity and adaptability.
Two themes explore action orientations for achieving zero hunger (Themes 1 & 2):

Harnessing opportunities (Theme 1) examines how digital technologies, innovative finance, and adaptive governance provide the infrastructure for systemic change, scaling precision agriculture and blended finance to boost resilience. This directly supports safeguarding diversity (Theme 2), countering uniformity in technologies and approaches for diversity in crops, local value chains and diets, preserving agro-biodiversity amid efficiency pressures.
For being effective in moving forward, it is imperative to develop understanding of the structural interconnections in the food system to contextualize action (Themes 3 & 4):
Balancing scales (Theme 3) mediates these enablers, navigating synergies where global efficiencies enhance diversity without eroding local resilience, or localized systems are leveraged for nutrition-sensitive transitions. Stabilizing forces (Theme 4) addresses how to ensure food systems are sustainable and resilient to shocks and stressors such as those from geopolitical and climate factors, how to secure affordable food and nutrition and foster adaptive effective governance.
Two themes reflect on how to empower actors, including scientists, to become agents of change:
Agency within the food system (Theme 5) operationalizes these dynamics at human scale, ensuring marginalized groups access technologies, markets, food environments and governance to exercise voice, dismantle inequities, and realize the right to food. Reflective science (Theme 6) underpins all, interrogating power in knowledge production, decolonizing methods, and auditing interventions to align innovations with epistemic justice and transformative impact. This reflexivity ensures the science field evolves in plural directions in its understanding of and contribution to zero hunger.

Explore the themes in more detail
Note: As the conference will focus on integrative issues relating to food system sustainability and resilience, more fundamental and applied research in, for instance, agriculture or nutrition will not be included.

References

• Béné, C., & Devereux, S. (Eds.). (2023). Resilience and Food Security in a Food Systems Context. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23535-1
• HLPE. (2020). Food security and nutrition: building a global narrative towards 2030. A report by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security.
• Schneider, K. R., Remans, R., Bekele, T. H., Aytekin, D., Conforti, P., Dasgupta, S., DeClerck, F., Dewi, D., Fabi, C., Gephart, J. A., Masuda, Y. J., McLaren, R., Saisana, M., Aburto, N., Ambikapathi, R., Arellano Rodriguez, M., Barquera, S., Battersby, J., Beal, T., … Fanzo, J. (2025). Governance and resilience as entry points for transforming food systems in the countdown to 2030. Nature Food, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01109-4
• Herrero, M., Thornton, P.K., Mason-D’Croz, D. et al. Innovation can accelerate the transition towards a sustainable food system. Nat Food 1, 266–272 (2020).

Code of Conduct: The Code of Conduct for organisers, participants and sponsors produced by the organisers, acknowledges the legitimate interests of the different stakeholders of the conference, recognising that they are all parts of a scientific endeavour to promote scientific and knowledge sharing and to produce public goods on global food security. View the Code of Conduct here.