The following international scientific events and conferences have opened their registrations and are calling for paper submissions: The R User Conference 2011 will take place at the University of Warwick , Coventry on 16-18 August 2011. The conference is organized by the Department of Statistics, University of Warwick and supported by the R Foundation for Statistical Computing . Prior to the conference, on Monday 15 August 2011, tutorials will be offered at the conference website . Each tutorial has a length of 3 hours and takes place either in the morning or afternoon. Early registration & abstracts submission deadline: 1st April 2011. Registration deadline: 27th May 2011 The 2011 IASC European conference is organized by the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) . This year’s conference will be hosted by the Agricultural University of Plovdiv , Bulgaria on 14-18 September 2011 under the topic “Shared Resources in a Rapidly Changing World”. Prominent keynote speakers, including Jouni Paavola, Konrad Hagedorn, Marco Janssen, Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Susan Buck and Tine de Moore, have agreed to participate.

October is the month of increased attention on hunger and poverty, with special focus on the future and nature of international aid. Twenty-two countries are facing enormous challenges like repeated food crises and an extremely high prevalence of hunger due to a combination of natural disasters, conflict, and weak institutions. These countries are in what is termed a protracted crisis, FAO said in its “State of Food Insecurity in the World 2010” hunger report, jointly published today with the World Food Programme (WFP). The current aid architecture needs to be modified to better address both immediate needs and the structural causes of protracted crises. Findings of the 2010 hunger report will be discussed by members of the newly reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome (11-16 October 2010). This happens while Tropentag keynote speaker Paul Collier blogs about the need for international aid that is subject to the same standards of integrity and transparency, while one of the most important donors' vision for "feeding the world" is questioned.

An opportunity for funding cutting-edge research that delivers improved understanding of how ecosystem function, the services they provide, the full value of these services, and their potential role in achieving sustainable poverty reduction was announced through the Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA). ESPA's goal is to ensure that, in developing countries, ecosystems are being sustainably managed in a way that contributes to poverty reduction and inclusive/sustainable growth. This announcement of opportunity invites proposals for research consortium projects that will address this agenda. All projects are required to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) through the web-based form by the closing date of 8 December 2010.

A student initiative called FRESH (acronym for Food Revitalisation & Eco-Gastronomic Society of Hohenheim) have been working for almost two years to suggest, fundraise and conceptualize a new course module on the Ethics of Food & Nutrition Security. Among the other actions of FRESH are a very fertile organic student garden in campus and leading the dialogue for more regional, more seasonal and more ethical food in the University canteen. This is the first module of this nature in Germany, where students not only request, but are also actively involved in its design and facilitation. The course is now in the study programme of the University of Hohenheim and since Monday, September 27, open for registrations.

Do we know enough about all crops of the world before we step into teasing evolution within the pool of a tiny number of species? Not well discussed and not well understood, an important tropical crop in Africa and other parts of the world reports: "Yam not a grain, yet I feed 60 million people every day. Yam a productive and valuable crop for farmers, getting as large as 2.5 meters long and weigh up to 70 kilograms. However, you know so little about how much I can give". Read the full story about the efforts of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) for saving endangered yams in this month's Scientific American.

Agriculture science for most people has this name of being bad, of being about pollution, about large-scale, about the destruction of the environment. That is not necessary. We need more science and not less. And we need good science. But there is something we must do. It's not enough to say "Let's get more bold science into agriculture." We ourselves must go back, and think about our own food chain. We need to think differently about our science as a whole. Every meal we eat contains ingredients from all across the world. Everything makes us so privileged, that we can eat this food, that we don't struggle every day. And that, evolutionarily-speaking, is unique. We've never had that before. This is why it's time for agricutural scientists to stand for responsible agriculture and food consumption, as they are crucial to world stability. Enjoy the talk of Louise Fresco, a powerful thinker and sustainability advisor, on feeding the whole world. She says environmentally sound mass production will feed the world, yet leaving a role for small scalers and traditional methods.

In recognition of the United Nations' declaration of 2010 as the 'International Year of Biodiversity', the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has included a special section on biodiversity in its September 2010 issue of Biotropica. The section includes 16 commentaries assembled by Jaboury Ghazoul, an ecologist at ETH Zurich and Editor-in-Chief of Biotropica. The editorials cover a wide range of issues relating to tropical biodiversity.

''This is a fantastic experiment... I am optimistic about the outcome and I am eagerly waiting to see whether it engages broader audiences'' Jack Heinemann, Professor for Genetics and Gene Ecology at the University of Canterbury, NZ, and author of the book “Hope not Hype: The Future of Agriculture”, commented about the student reporter at the Tropentag 2010. Watch his inspiring comments about this brand new innovation on reporting the scientific event.