UGA’s Center for Integrative Conservation Research is hosting a free workshop that will explore the links between food production, policy and sustainability on Oct. 1 in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries.
The workshop, “The Future of Food,” is expected to draw faculty, staff and students from across campus as well as community members interested in the challenges and potential of reshaping food systems.
Rashid Nuri, founder of the Truly Living Well Center for Urban Agriculture in Atlanta and president of the board of Georgia Organics, will deliver the keynote address at 3:45 p.m. in Room 271.
The workshop includes a 9 a.m. panel discussion on food production featuring Amy Trauger (assistant professor of geography), Frank Horne (farmer), Jack Matthews (farmer and graduate student in the College of Environment and Design), Cesar Escalante (moderator and associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences). At 10:15 a.m., a panel discussion on food policy will feature Jennifer Owens (advocacy director, Georgia Organics), Susannah Chapman (graduate student in anthropology), Alice Kinman (Athens-Clarke County District 4 Commissioner), Craig Page (moderator and ACC special projects coordinator/planner). At 11:30 a.m., a panel discussion will be held on food systems research featuring Hilda Kurtz (associate professor of geography), Julia Gaskin (CAES sustainable agriculture coordinator), Virginia Nazarea (professor of anthropology), Fenwick Broyard III (moderator and community garden organizer with Athens Land Trust). Break-out discussions will take place at 2:30 p.m.
The UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research was established in 2007 with the support of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It works to identify conservation practices and policies that simultaneously preserve biodiversity and serve human needs.
Last fall, the center launched a Ph.D. program that allows students to choose one of four areas of focus—in anthropology, ecology, forestry and natural resources, and geography—while also learning to work at the intersection of multiple disciplines to reach integrative solutions to complex problems.
The workshop is sponsored by the UGA Center for Integrative Conservation Research as well as the Graduate School, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, its department of geography and the Odum School of Ecology.
