Maantieteen Päivät (Finnish Geography Days): 8-10.11.2023

This year’s Finnish Geography Days are being held in Joensuu, jointly organized by the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies and the Karelian Institute at the University of Eastern Finland. The central theme of the conference is ‘Geographies in the Time of Crises,’ aiming to address major questions related to planetary crises such as climate change, biodiversity, urbanism, and geopolitics.

The project’s Principal Investigator, Erja Kettunen-Matilainen, and Ayu Pratiwi are co-chairing Session 14: ‘Stakeholder and Policy Responses to Multidimensional Food Security Challenges in Diverse Regions.‘ This session seeks to explore nuanced policy options, responses, and initiatives that governments and other societal stakeholders are employing to navigate uncharted terrains in the realm of global food security. It examines how governments (as policy enablers) and consumers and producers (as the main societal stakeholders) effectively or ineffectively respond, modify, alter, or reconstruct food production systems amidst and following crises.

The session featured a balanced presentation of case studies from both the global North and South, with the following lineup: (1) Associate Professor Moritz Albrecht from the University of Eastern Finland, who presented on the territorialisation processes of Norway’s seaweed farming assemblage; (2) Ayu Pratiwi from Turku University, who discussed a field experiment in Indonesia aimed at fighting deforestation by leveraging agricultural social networks to promote agroforestry practices; (3) Oswald Sydd from the University of Eastern Finland, who outlined the potential and challenges for a zero-loss process in the beef production industry, using the case of food manufacturers in North Karelia, Finland; and lastly, (4) Adjunct Professor Erja Kettunen-Matilainen, who concluded the session with a presentation on the EU-Indonesia policy dialogue on palm oil amidst the global food security crisis.

The session highlighted the concerted efforts within the food industry to achieve sustainability in production lines, emphasizing the interconnectedness among various actors, including governments as policy enablers, multilateral cooperation, as well as micro-level stakeholders such as smallholders and food manufacturers.