The conference will be held in hybrid form (on Zoom and in-campus at the Faculty of Agro-food and Environmental Economics).

CAFEE International Conference aims at debating new ideas provided by research along with experiences brought by institutional and business representatives in the field of agri-food systems, regional and rural development, sustainable development, agri-food economics, environmental policy, and management.

Agriculture is a vital economic sector that witnessed the boom triggered by unprecedented increase in food demand due to demographic growth to be replaced by fierce global competition accompanied by strengthening of various constrains on the background of global crises like financial and ecological crises, depletion of natural resources or hegemony disputes. Despite the fact that the agriculture of the 21st century is a sophisticated industry that is based on innovation-driven technology, such dramatic change cannot be properly addressed by relying on the analysis of previous trends. Coping with the novel constrains calls for the knowledge support for both policy making and businesses in agro-food and environmental economy to be enriched with cutting edge information provided by approaches built up from multiple perspectives applied on the main challenges such as globalization, food security, rural development, climate change impact, vulnerability of the food system, increasing demand for bioenergy, perspective of scarcity for the natural resources that support agriculture, adequacy of agriculture and environmental knowledge systems, amongst others.

The CAFEE conference is addressing the need to improve the knowledge support by bringing together leading experts, decision-makers, and professionals on an ongoing, annual basis to capture the research energy currently being devoted to the analysis and assessment of developments and challenges of agro-food and environmental policies and businesses within the framework of globalization and European integration.

The aim of the conference is to provide a high-quality forum for the presentation of new ideas and research results, exploration of research needs, and the share of experiences and for the scientific discussion of challenges and priorities that give insights on key issue for the strategic approach of competitiveness in agro-food and environmental economy.

Our goal is to open the conference to debates among participants from all fields, in particular agricultural economics and policy, rural development, management of agricultural holdings, sustainable agriculture, food safety, and environmental policy and management. The conference will combine plenary speakers with specialized sections for research presentations that address competitiveness in either agro-food or environmental economy