Food Politics Expert at MHC September 26
September 12, 2007
Posted: September 12, 2007Updated: September 28, 2007 - Listen to the Audio
Few issues connect people to the Earth more directly, and intimately, than food. Where and how the food we consume is produced affects not only our own health but that of the planet's, and influences the sustainability of rural livelihoods from New England to Nigeria.
On Wednesday, September 26, best-selling author Anna Lappé, cofounder of the Small Planet Institute, will deliver an evening lecture titled "The Power of the Plate: Food, Politics, and Social Change," in which she will illuminate the intersecting challenges posed by climate change, environmental degradation, and the globalized food system--and offer alternatives that can lead to healthier people, communities, and ecosystems.
Named one of Time magazine's "Eco Who's Who," Lappé has received acclaim for her social change work focused on food politics and sustainable farming. She is coauthor of the critically acclaimed Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. Lappé's lecture is sponsored by the Mount Holyoke College Center for the Environment. Other sponsors at the College include the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives, the Garden Society, and the environmental studies program. Also cosponsoring Lappé's talk are the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, the New England Small Farm Institute, Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, and the Odyssey Bookshop. The event will take place at 7 pm in Hooker Auditorium, Clapp Laboratory. After her lecture, Lappé will sign copies of her books.
"Ms. Lappé's visit this fall is especially timely," said Sandra Postel, the Leslie and Sarah Miller Director of the Center for the Environment. "Not only are food policy issues getting worldwide attention, but the first fruits of Mount Holyoke's own pilot organic garden will appear on campus. Nothing embodies the 'think globally, act locally' philosophy quite like food."
Founded in 1998, the Center for the Environment aims to create new approaches to learning that engage students more actively in the scientific, social, human, and global dimensions of environmental study.
This event is free and open to the public.
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