Conference Announcement: From Chopsticks to Crops - Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems

One of today's most pressing challenges is to meet the food needs of a rapidly growing global population sustainably, a challenge manifesting as a dual crisis. On the nutrition front, there is a rapid global increase in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, driven by the shift in consumption towards more processed foods, sugars, unhealthy fats, and animal-source proteins, while hunger, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies remain critical issues in many low- and middle-income countries. On the production front, resource depletion (water, soil, biodiversity) and environmental pollution (GHGs, nutrients) continue to rise as a result of continued extensification and intensification of food production, challenging planetary boundaries. Rising consumer consciousness for healthy diets, novel production technologies, agroecological practices, and circular food systems, supported by governmental policies are beginning to curb these negative trends, but progress remains too slow to meet global sustainability targets. 

Addressing this dual crisis requires a global transition towards healthy diets that also consider the environmental impact of food production. As the EAT-Lancet Report (Willett et al., 2019) establishes, such a transformation is both imperative and achievable. Effective food policies must target the entire food system, not isolated parts, to enhance coherence and impact. A healthy, sustainable system delivers sufficient, safe, and nutritious food while supporting livelihoods, ensuring high resource efficiency, and protecting nature and biodiversity. While these goals are widely endorsed, realizing them is challenging due to the system's inherent complexity and the frequent trade-offs involved.

The international conference From Chopsticks to Crops - Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems aims to contribute to this transition by bringing together researchers working on the environmental, nutrition & health, and socioeconomic dimensions of food systems. It offers a platform for discussing research approaches, exchanging recent research findings, identifying research gaps, and setting priorities for future interdisciplinary collaborations in the pursuit of healthy diets for a sustainable environment. 
The main theme of the conference will be the roles of 
•    healthy diets
•    innovations in food production, processing and provisioning
•    circularity in the whole food production-consumption chain 
•    policy and institutions in developing sustainable food systems. 

China will be a key focus. It grapples with the dual challenge of rising obesity and persistent rural malnutrition, while its expanding food production system contributes significantly to environmental strain. The Chinese government is actively steering a shift toward healthy diets and sustainable food systems, and must navigate a core tension between the new goals of public health and sustainability and the traditional priorities of food security and rural livelihoods. China’s management of these competing priorities offers a valuable case study for other nations. Contributions from the Global South and other regions are also highly welcome, as they will provide an essential foundation for comparative analysis. 
Four keynote speakers will introduce the main theme by addressing the roles of healthy diets, innovations, circularity, and policy in developing sustainable food systems, respectively. Other speakers are encouraged to link up with these topics. We welcome presentations about China as well as other parts of the world. 

Venue
The conference will be held at the Wageningen UR Campus, Wageningen, the Netherlands. All participants are expected to attend the conference in person. The conference language is English. In the afternoon of July 17th, there will be a field visit to an organic farm near Wageningen.

Travel and accommodation 
Participants need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. The organizers can provide assistance (e.g., visa application, hotel booking, travel recommendations) for participants, if needed; please contact us at info@surefood.org.

Conference registration fee
Regular registration     € 300
Students (incl. PhDs, Postdocs)    € 100

Important dates
Registration deadline    25 June, 2026 
Conference     16-17 July, 2026
Field visit     17 July, 2026    (afternoon)

Conference Registration
The conference is open not only to presenters who have submitted abstracts or papers, but also to researchers and others who wish to attend as audience members. The same registration fee applies to all participants, including audience attendees.