The 4th (ICEFS) "Sustainable Environmental-based Food Security in Integrated Agriculture: Technology and Innovations"

Sustainable integrated agricultural practices have faced increasingly severe challenges in recent decades. Depletion of natural resources: reduction in land area and productivity, drought and salinity are ongoing problems. Another challenge is how urgent climate change issue is, displaying a new crisis in the agricultural sector. The dry season is drier and longer, while the rainy season is shorter with very high rain intensity. Changes in the frequency of each season are becoming increasingly erratic pose threats to farmers, especially small-scale farmers in tropical areas. Climate change also threatens the survival of several plant and animal species, leading to extinction and reduced biodiversity.

On the other hand, food safety issues are now facing new challenges. Food security is not longer just about production quantities but is a matter of distribution, access and nutritional adequacy. The diversity of regions in Indonesia causes different food security challenges. For example, hundreds of tons of food become wasted in developed countries every year regardless the poor in these regions is forced to consume processed foods rich in saturated fat but low in nutrients. Meanwhile, in other tropical and dry areas, the community is facing real threat of starvation. Scientists, academics, practitioners, professionals, governments, entrepreneurs and communities across countries needed a collaborative solution to overcome this global problem.

A forum is needed to build a network between stakeholders to achieve optimization knowledge distribution and communication. Therefore, an international conference is effective in distributing knowledge and developing communication. The international conference will be hosted by the Faculty of Agriculture, Musamus University and will be the main forum for fostering professional relationships between researchers or research institutions. A multi-disciplinary approach will taken at the conference based on the collaboration of knowledge and experience from scientists, researchers, practitioners and policy makers.