March 9
Conference Explores How We Got Here and How to Move Forward
Less=More Coalition Convenes
Experts, Farmers and Consumers during MSU Ag & Natural Resources Week
What: Farming
Our Future: The Forces and Faces of 21st Century Agriculture
When: Monday,
March 9, 2015, 9am‐4pm
(registration opens 8am)
Where: Kellogg Center Auditorium, 219 S.
Harrison, East Lansing
Admission: $25 general; $20 students with school
ID (admission includes lunch)
Register: http://tinyurl.com/FarmingOurFuture
Lansing, MI— Last summer’s water crisis in Lake
Erie still ripples in today's headlines. Fed by farm runoff, the toxic algal
bloom that poisoned Toledo's water for two days inspired the recent
announcement of the USDA’s $370 million Regional Conservation Partnership Program
to help prevent waste and fertilizer runoff in Michigan and other states. It also motivated citizens’ groups and environmental advocates
to push the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality at its Jan. 21 meeting
to toughen regulations in the state's water pollution permit for concentrated
animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which is currently under review.
Lake Erie’s
health will also underscore everything discussed at Farming Our Future: The Forces
and Faces of 21st Century Agriculture, a
groundbreaking conference March 9 at Michigan State University during MSU’s
historic Agriculture and Natural Resources Week. Presented by the sustainable agriculture Less=More Coalition, Farming Our Future will channel diverse national, regional and local conversations
about the environmental, economic and social impacts of modern agriculture into
a comprehensive forum to facilitate joint efforts to build a better food
system. It will explore the political, legal, and
historical forces that shape farming in Michigan today and how to chart a path
to a more sustainable food system.
The
conference will feature keynote addresses by Tim Gibbons, communications director of the Missouri Rural Crisis
Center, and Danielle Nierenberg,
president of Food Tank in Chicago, and will bring together agricultural policy
and legal experts, farmers, consumers and researchers in two panel discussions
including:
·
Dr. M. Jahi Chappell, director of agroecology and
agriculture policy at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
·
Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to‐Consumer Legal Defense Fund
·
Phil Howard, an associate professor in
Michigan State University’s Department of Community Sustainability
·
Joe Maxwell, a hog farmer and vice president
of outreach & engagement at The Humane Society of the United States
·
Michelle Jackson, a fourth‐generation African American urban
farmer in Detroit
·
Michael Vanderbrug, a sustainable farmer and
agricultural operations director in the community outreach department of the
YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids.
The conference takes place from 9am‐4pm Monday, March 9, at the Kellogg Center Auditorium, 219 S.
Harrison, East Lansing. Admission is $25; $20 for students (with school ID). To
register, visit: http://tinyurl.com/FarmingOurFuture.
For an agenda and more information about the conference, visit http://michigan.sierraclub.org/calendar/LESS=MORE_Conference.html
