The general aims of the International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (ICAF)are to promote and coordinate collaboration and research in biological and social anthropology in regard to the sciences of food and nutrition, fostering in particular a pluridisciplinary approach. ICAF is a commission of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES)Honorary Members: Mary Douglas - Igor de Garine - Annie Hubertfurther information will be available soon What's new (March 2013) see on: http://www.icafood.eu/ The Aims of ICAF The aims of the Commission are : To assist world anthropologists in their basic and applied research on food. To encourage indigenous expertise on food problems in developing countries. To promote the collaboration of anthropologists with institutions and individual experts from related fields of study. To stimulate education and training in the anthropology of food. Anthropologists, with their traditional interest in the place of food in social life, are giving renewed attention to food in international development. The Commission was set up to coordinate their work on food studies, world hunger, and malnutrition. Biological and social anthropologists are interested in the way food supplies may be affected by changes in energy systems, market structure, public policies, family composition, and women's roles, as well as by technological change. The mandate of the commission calls for basic and applied research on food production, storage, exchange, feeding, and food symbolism in the light of major structural changes. This includes nutritional studies of vulnerable segments of the population : mothers and young children, the industrial poor, and the rural poor. One special focus is the changing ethic regarding food in international development. Consequently, it involves experts, and development specialists. Above all, it is a central concern of ICAF to make anthropologists' work on food available to policy and planning agencies, both governmental and international, and to exchange information with them on a continuing basis. Organisation The Commission is international. The President is Helen Macbeth and the General Secretary is Frederic Duhart . The international Treasurer is Paul Collinson The organisational structure is developing. The general plan is one of regional sections, within which there are national committees or representatives. Some national committees or representatives do not find themselves logically within one of the existing regional sections. In such cases the national committee is described as in contact with, rather than within, a regional section of its choice. The situation with regard to national committees and regional sections is always developing. The current position can be checked within this WebSite and we welcome updated information. An annual report is written by the Commissioner to the Secretary-General of IUAES. For this report each national committee or representative should provide annual information to the Chair of its regional section. The Chair of that regional section, on request from the Commissioner, then gives a regional report to the Commissioner. ICAF(Europe) has worked with this system longest and its structure of national committees is most advanced and still developing. This has meant a productive series of conferences each organised by a different national committee or representative. From these conferences