Campus news

Media Advisory: May 5 talk on diversifying farming practices in face of climate change

By Media Relations

Contact: Kathryn Moriarty-Baldwin, College of Natural Resources
(510) 643-6641
moriartyk@berkeley.edu

ATTENTION: Environmental reporters

WHAT

Feeding 9 Billion with the Challenges of Climate Change: Towards Diversified Ecoagriculture Landscapes, a keynote address and panel discussion at the University of California, Berkeley, that will address the needs for sustainable agricultural production over the next few decades in the face of climate change.

Todays industrial agriculture provides more food than ever before, but at huge environmental and societal costs. This form of agriculture exacerbates global climate change and is hugely vulnerable to climate uncertainties, said Claire Kremen, associate professor at the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management in the College of Natural Resources, and one of the expert panelists at the event. We need to transform industrial agriculture and food systems so that they embrace more complex ecosystem services and more resilient and equitable food systems.

WHEN

2:30-5 p.m., Wednesday, May 5.

WHERE

Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center

WHO

In addition to Kremen, participants will include:
A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture
Sara Scherr, president and CEO of Ecoagriculture Partners, keynote speaker
Tom Tomich, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute and professor of the Department of Community Development, Environmental Science & Policy at UC Davis
Nathan Sayre, assistant professor at UC Berkeleys Department of Geography

DETAILS

The event, hosted by the Berkeley Institute of the Environment, is the final capstone in a series of eight interactive sessions that have brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, writers and practitioners focused on the efficacy and complexities of multi-functional agriculture. The goal is to engage in incisive dialogue on the current scientific understanding of the ecology, sociology and economics of diversified farming systems, and to identify knowledge gaps leading to development of research proposals and new scholarly work.

More information can be found online at the Roundtables on Diversified Farming Systems.