UH West Oahu students working with beehives
The UH West Oʻahu Sustainable Community Food Systems Program (SCFS) will host the 9th national Sustainable Agriculture Education Association Conference (SAEA) and the Hoʻōla ʻĀina O Māʻilikūkahi Youth Food Sovereignty Congress from July 27-29, 2018 at the University of Hawai‘i - West Oʻahu.
Dr. Albie Miles, UHWO Assistant Professor, Sustainable Community Food Systems will serve as co-coordinator and host for the 2018 National Sustainable Agriculture Education conference, and is expected to draw approximately 400 educators, administrators, graduate and undergraduate students, and others involved in farmer training in North America. The conference will be co-hosted by the University of Hawaiʻi System Office of Sustainability and the Sustainable Agriculture Education Association, a group of scholars that champion interdisciplinary agroecology and sustainable food systems programming in higher education.
Dr. Albie Miles
The 2018 SAEA conference will highlight models of higher education that represent indigenous knowledge, engage critical political-ecological analysis, and train future generations to achieve food system resilience and equity. Through presentations, workshops, field trips, and hands-on activities, participants will share their theories, practices, and visions for integrating indigenous knowledge, decolonization, and socio-ecological resilience into post-secondary agroecology and food systems training.
The conference invites participants from across the food system, including academic scholars, students, farmers, cooks, community organizers, land/resource managers and other professionals. Presenters will represent universities, colleges, farmer training organizations, and a range of professional and civil society organizations.
The Request for Conference Proposals for the event may be found here. The online application form may be found here. Organizers are inviting proposals for presentations, panel discussions, and workshops in three focal areas:
- Indigenous knowledge, power, and pedagogy
- Decolonizing the food system: Feeding ourselves and others through higher education
- Living traditions, living economies: Toward self-determination, resilience and equity in the food system
The Hoʻōla ʻĀina O Māʻilikūkahi Youth Food Sovereignty Congress will run in parallel with the SAEA Conference and is being included to provide a platform from which community oriented, intergenerational and cultural approaches to building a sustainable food system are honored, cultivated, and launched.