Boston conf: The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives 5/8 - 5/9
This looks like an interesting event in the MA region
LINK - http://www.bu.edu/euforyou/EU/future-of-food.html
We are organizing these events in response to the growing concerns of local communities in the United States and Europe over matters of health, the environment, and the economy. The conference takes the growing global food crisis as a starting point and asks key stakeholders to imagine a different future. Our working hypothesis is that the current food crisis is systemic in nature and solutions from the past (more market, more regulation, etc.) will not allow the global food system to evolve in a sustainable way. The situation calls for innovations in infrastructure and re-thinking how food is grown, shipped, and distributed locally, regionally, and globally. How can we foster a global food system that safeguards cultural and biodiversity while providing safe and nourishing food for all citizens?
Cultures, historically, have possessed deeply rooted traditions around food; the industrialization of agriculture and the globalization of the food chain disrupt traditions, obscuring the relationship between humans and their environment. As Eric Schlosser, author of the popular American book Fast Food Nation, points out, there has been more change in the way we eat in the last 30 years than in the previous 30,000. Our conference explores the consequences of this sweeping transformation on both sides of the Atlantic, with particular attention to its implications for culture. Is there a relationship, as the American poet Wendell Berry suggests, between the modernization of agriculture and the degradation of culture? Does the erosion of biodiversity, for example, pose a threat to cultural diversity?
The panels are not intended to be exhaustive, but to introduce people to some key issues and to encourage them to think more consciously about the food they buy and eat. Food choices are increasingly ethical and political choices. Deciding what to eat is therefore one way in which citizens, at least in most of Europe and the United States, can “vote with their forks."
Friday, May 8, 2009
Fermentation lecture and workshop:
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods
Join Sandor Ellix Katz (aka Sandorkraut), author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, for this workshop. Learn how easy it is to make sauerkraut, pickles and other live-culture ferments in your own kitchen. Highly nutritious and filled with life, fermented foods have a long history and a promising future. Empower yourself to create these delicious and healthful foods!
2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
808 Commonwealth Avenue (Fuller Building)
Demonstration Room
Seating limited | $30 includes signed copy of Wild Fermentation | $20 without book.
Join us!>>
If you have questions about the workshop, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854.
Lecture, book-signing and dinner:
Cooking with a Conscience
Featuring ec0-chef, author, and food-justice activist Bryant Terry
Bryant Terry is a nationally recognized eco chef, author, and food justice activist. He is currently a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a national program of the WK Kellogg Foundation. He is co-author, with Anna Lappé, of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and author of the recently released Vegan Soul Kitchen. With the help of a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellowship, he has started the Southern Organic Kitchen Project in order to educate primarily African-Americans living in the Southern United States about the connections between diet and health.
Dinner (see menu) features recipes from Bryant's Vegan Soul Kitchen.
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
808 Commonwealth Avenue (Fuller Building)
Demonstration Room
Seating limited | $45.00 includes signed copy of Vegan Soul Kitchen
Join us!>>
If you have questions about the dinner with Bryant Terry, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854.
Film Screening and discussion:
King Corn
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm.
Film-screening will be introduced by Ian Cheney, filmmaker, and followed by discussion with Aaron Woolf, director.
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Boston University Law School
Auditorium | Barristers' Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue
[Directions]
Free and open to the public | Reception to follow
Saturday, May 9, 2009
International Conference:
The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives
Free and open to the public
(includes all panels, breakfast, coffee breaks, reception)
8:00 AM - 8:45 AM: Breakfast and Registration
8:45 AM - 9:00 AM: Introductions
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Opening Keynote Address
Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence
9:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Session I: From Farm to Fork: The Global Food Chain
This session traces the increasingly obscure path of food from "farm to fork." The focus is on food production and the industrialization of agriculture. It will consider the growing influence of “agribusiness” and the “politics of food.” Our goals are to explore the alignment (or lack thereof) of business and consumer interests and the impact of the transformation of the food system on culture.
Participants:
Arie van den Brand, President, Biologica and former Member of Parliament, the Netherlands
Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty
Moderator: James McCann, Professor of History and Associate Director for Development, African Studies Center, Boston University
11:00 AM – 11:30AM: Coffee Break
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM: Session II: The End of Cheap Food: Food and Geopolitics
This session will center on “food security.” It will address the rising cost of food and the “fuel vs. food” debate. Is the growing demand for biofuels responsible for food inflation? Other threats to food security will also be explored, namely, fossil fuel dependence, loss of biodiversity, and water shortages.
Participants:
Benedikt Haerlin, Foundation on Future Farming | Save Our Seeds
Jim Harkness, President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Tim Wise, Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University
Moderator: Cutler Cleveland, Professor of Geography and Environmental Science, Boston University
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Vegetarian lunch with guest speakers
Seating limited | $15.00 | Please indicate when registering whether or not you will attend the lunch.
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Session III: What’s in What You Eat? Food Safety in a New Ecology
This panel focuses on “food safety” with an emphasis on regulation in the United States and Europe, the GMO debate, recent “food scares,” and the looming threat of bioterrorism.
Participants:
Arie van den Brand, President, Biologica and former Member of Parliament, the Netherlands
Simone Gabbi, European Food Safety Authority
Helen Holder, GM Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe
Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director, Center for Food Safety
Moderator: Adil Najam, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: Coffee Break
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Session IV: Eating Green: Food and Climate Change
This panel looks at the relationship between food production and climate change, addressing issues of deforestation, soil degradation, and factory farms and considers whether what we eat can make a difference.
Participants:
Daniel Hillel, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
Björn-Ola Linnér, Linköping University, the Tema Institute
Mia MacDonald, Founder and Executive Director, Brighter Green
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
Moderator: Henrik Selin, Professor of International Relations, Boston University
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Coffee Break
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Session V: What Is “Good” Food? The Ethics
of Eating
Is “good” food healthy, sustainable, delectable or cheap? This panel explores why our food choices matter. It addresses the “ethics of eating” and the health and environmental costs of “cheap food.” It looks at some of the grassroots alternatives including the rise of organic farming, locavorism, and the “slow food” movement.
Participants:
Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved
Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence
Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fair Trade Foundation
Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
Moderator: Molly Anderson, independent consultant on science and policy for sustainability
7:30 PM - 8:00 PM:Closing Keynote Address
Michael Ableman, farmer, author, and photographer and a recognized practitioner of sustainable agriculture and proponent of regional food systems
8:00 PM - 8:30 PM: Reception
Location:
Boston University Law School
Auditorium | Barristers' Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue
[Directions]
All Saturday events, with exception of lunch, are free and open to the public. Registration in advance is appreciated and helps us with planning.
Note: There will be no admittance while sessions are in process or after 6:00 PM. Please plan your travel to arrive before the start of the session(s) you would like to attend.
Schedule and location(s) subject to change - please check back.
If you have questions about the conference, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854, or Elizabeth Amrien at eamrien@bu.edu or 617-358-2778.
Sponsors
Funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC with additional support from the Ford Foundation
In cooperation with the Center for International Relations at Boston University and Boston University’s Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy and programs in food studies
Note: For additional sponsorship opportunities, please contact Elizabeth Amrien, conference organizer, at eamrien@bu.edu or 617-358-2778.
LINK - http://www.bu.edu/euforyou/EU/future-of-food.html
We are organizing these events in response to the growing concerns of local communities in the United States and Europe over matters of health, the environment, and the economy. The conference takes the growing global food crisis as a starting point and asks key stakeholders to imagine a different future. Our working hypothesis is that the current food crisis is systemic in nature and solutions from the past (more market, more regulation, etc.) will not allow the global food system to evolve in a sustainable way. The situation calls for innovations in infrastructure and re-thinking how food is grown, shipped, and distributed locally, regionally, and globally. How can we foster a global food system that safeguards cultural and biodiversity while providing safe and nourishing food for all citizens?
Cultures, historically, have possessed deeply rooted traditions around food; the industrialization of agriculture and the globalization of the food chain disrupt traditions, obscuring the relationship between humans and their environment. As Eric Schlosser, author of the popular American book Fast Food Nation, points out, there has been more change in the way we eat in the last 30 years than in the previous 30,000. Our conference explores the consequences of this sweeping transformation on both sides of the Atlantic, with particular attention to its implications for culture. Is there a relationship, as the American poet Wendell Berry suggests, between the modernization of agriculture and the degradation of culture? Does the erosion of biodiversity, for example, pose a threat to cultural diversity?
The panels are not intended to be exhaustive, but to introduce people to some key issues and to encourage them to think more consciously about the food they buy and eat. Food choices are increasingly ethical and political choices. Deciding what to eat is therefore one way in which citizens, at least in most of Europe and the United States, can “vote with their forks."
Friday, May 8, 2009
Fermentation lecture and workshop:
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods
Join Sandor Ellix Katz (aka Sandorkraut), author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, for this workshop. Learn how easy it is to make sauerkraut, pickles and other live-culture ferments in your own kitchen. Highly nutritious and filled with life, fermented foods have a long history and a promising future. Empower yourself to create these delicious and healthful foods!
2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
808 Commonwealth Avenue (Fuller Building)
Demonstration Room
Seating limited | $30 includes signed copy of Wild Fermentation | $20 without book.
Join us!>>
If you have questions about the workshop, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854.
Lecture, book-signing and dinner:
Cooking with a Conscience
Featuring ec0-chef, author, and food-justice activist Bryant Terry
Bryant Terry is a nationally recognized eco chef, author, and food justice activist. He is currently a Food and Society Policy Fellow, a national program of the WK Kellogg Foundation. He is co-author, with Anna Lappé, of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and author of the recently released Vegan Soul Kitchen. With the help of a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellowship, he has started the Southern Organic Kitchen Project in order to educate primarily African-Americans living in the Southern United States about the connections between diet and health.
Dinner (see menu) features recipes from Bryant's Vegan Soul Kitchen.
5:30 PM - 7:30 PM
808 Commonwealth Avenue (Fuller Building)
Demonstration Room
Seating limited | $45.00 includes signed copy of Vegan Soul Kitchen
Join us!>>
If you have questions about the dinner with Bryant Terry, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854.
Film Screening and discussion:
King Corn
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm.
Film-screening will be introduced by Ian Cheney, filmmaker, and followed by discussion with Aaron Woolf, director.
8:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Boston University Law School
Auditorium | Barristers' Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue
[Directions]
Free and open to the public | Reception to follow
Saturday, May 9, 2009
International Conference:
The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives
Free and open to the public
(includes all panels, breakfast, coffee breaks, reception)
8:00 AM - 8:45 AM: Breakfast and Registration
8:45 AM - 9:00 AM: Introductions
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Opening Keynote Address
Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence
9:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Session I: From Farm to Fork: The Global Food Chain
This session traces the increasingly obscure path of food from "farm to fork." The focus is on food production and the industrialization of agriculture. It will consider the growing influence of “agribusiness” and the “politics of food.” Our goals are to explore the alignment (or lack thereof) of business and consumer interests and the impact of the transformation of the food system on culture.
Participants:
Arie van den Brand, President, Biologica and former Member of Parliament, the Netherlands
Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty
Moderator: James McCann, Professor of History and Associate Director for Development, African Studies Center, Boston University
11:00 AM – 11:30AM: Coffee Break
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM: Session II: The End of Cheap Food: Food and Geopolitics
This session will center on “food security.” It will address the rising cost of food and the “fuel vs. food” debate. Is the growing demand for biofuels responsible for food inflation? Other threats to food security will also be explored, namely, fossil fuel dependence, loss of biodiversity, and water shortages.
Participants:
Benedikt Haerlin, Foundation on Future Farming | Save Our Seeds
Jim Harkness, President, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Tim Wise, Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University
Moderator: Cutler Cleveland, Professor of Geography and Environmental Science, Boston University
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Vegetarian lunch with guest speakers
Seating limited | $15.00 | Please indicate when registering whether or not you will attend the lunch.
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Session III: What’s in What You Eat? Food Safety in a New Ecology
This panel focuses on “food safety” with an emphasis on regulation in the United States and Europe, the GMO debate, recent “food scares,” and the looming threat of bioterrorism.
Participants:
Arie van den Brand, President, Biologica and former Member of Parliament, the Netherlands
Simone Gabbi, European Food Safety Authority
Helen Holder, GM Campaign Coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe
Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director, Center for Food Safety
Moderator: Adil Najam, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University
3:30 PM – 4:00 PM: Coffee Break
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM: Session IV: Eating Green: Food and Climate Change
This panel looks at the relationship between food production and climate change, addressing issues of deforestation, soil degradation, and factory farms and considers whether what we eat can make a difference.
Participants:
Daniel Hillel, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
Björn-Ola Linnér, Linköping University, the Tema Institute
Mia MacDonald, Founder and Executive Director, Brighter Green
Cynthia Rosenzweig, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
Moderator: Henrik Selin, Professor of International Relations, Boston University
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Coffee Break
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM: Session V: What Is “Good” Food? The Ethics
of Eating
Is “good” food healthy, sustainable, delectable or cheap? This panel explores why our food choices matter. It addresses the “ethics of eating” and the health and environmental costs of “cheap food.” It looks at some of the grassroots alternatives including the rise of organic farming, locavorism, and the “slow food” movement.
Participants:
Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved
Satish Kumar, Editor, Resurgence
Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fair Trade Foundation
Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)
Moderator: Molly Anderson, independent consultant on science and policy for sustainability
7:30 PM - 8:00 PM:Closing Keynote Address
Michael Ableman, farmer, author, and photographer and a recognized practitioner of sustainable agriculture and proponent of regional food systems
8:00 PM - 8:30 PM: Reception
Location:
Boston University Law School
Auditorium | Barristers' Hall
765 Commonwealth Avenue
[Directions]
All Saturday events, with exception of lunch, are free and open to the public. Registration in advance is appreciated and helps us with planning.
Note: There will be no admittance while sessions are in process or after 6:00 PM. Please plan your travel to arrive before the start of the session(s) you would like to attend.
Schedule and location(s) subject to change - please check back.
If you have questions about the conference, please contact Kate Seif at clseif@bu.edu or 610-420-7854, or Elizabeth Amrien at eamrien@bu.edu or 617-358-2778.
Sponsors
Funded by the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC with additional support from the Ford Foundation
In cooperation with the Center for International Relations at Boston University and Boston University’s Master of Liberal Arts in Gastronomy and programs in food studies
Note: For additional sponsorship opportunities, please contact Elizabeth Amrien, conference organizer, at eamrien@bu.edu or 617-358-2778.
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"Holding each other in the highest future intention" ~ Theory U
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead
Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!" ~ Charles Shulz
"Holding each other in the highest future intention" ~ Theory U
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead
Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Taken!" ~ Charles Shulz
Events
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Pancakes and Transition
December 29, 2009 from 9am to 10am – The Empire Grill
© 2009 Created by Michael Brownlee
