Dear colleagues,

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the 34th EFFoST International Conference Bridging high-tech, food-tech and health: Consumer-oriented innovations will be held online, on 10-12 November 2020. In light of the increasing challenges the food industry faces, there is an immediate need for healthy, safe, sustainable, diverse and wholesome food solutions to fit the needs and preferences of the consumer. The 34th EFFoST International Conference will catalyse partnerships and exchanges of fundamental and applied interdisciplinary insights and ideas to enhance and extend the capacity of the food sector to face such challenges today and tomorrow. 

Guest Editor Nadia Palmieri and Dr. Alessandro Suardi from CREA Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Sustainability on “Agricultural and Food System Sustainability: The Complex Challenge of Losses and Waste”. For this Special Issue, they welcome conceptual and empirical studies that analyze actions: To reduce losses of products and byproducts at the farm level; To promote sustainable agriculture; To provide insights into the relationships between consumers and household food waste behaviors; To evaluate the market potential of food obtained from byproducts; To promote the reuse of waste and byproducts to increase the nutritional value of food; To underline causes of food waste and its correlation with climate change, agriculture, and population growth. This special issue is now open for submission. Deadline is 1 February 2021.

Finally, Guest Editors Dr. Oriana Gava from the Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics Analysis in Rome and Dr. Giovanna Sacchi from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano invite researchers to contribute to the Special Issue "Addressing the Food–Health–Environmental Nexus for Agri-Food System Sustainability". Researchers are called to contribute to the existing knowledge about the food–health–environment nexus, to support the development of solutions to address the environmental and health impacts of agri-food systems simultaneously, with practical implications for strategic decision making by policymakers and in the agribusiness. The purpose of this Special Issue is to offer insights into how different practices, systems, technologies, and approaches to food production and consumption can create positive synergies in the food–health–environment nexus, by boosting the positive externalities on the environment and human health, while mitigating the negative ones. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2021.