"The Omnivores' Trifecta": Bawden Seminar Announcement

“The Omnivores’ Trifecta”:

Agriculture, Food and Health

and the Systemic Relationships between them

 

Dr. Richard Bawden

Systemic Development Institute, Australia

 

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

 

Reception @ 5:00 pm

Seminar from 5:30 – 6:45 pm

 

338 Natural Resources Building

 

 

RSVP, Jennifer Patterson at patter34@anr.msu.edu by Tuesday noon.

 

More than a dozen years have slipped by since Ernest Boyer called for the academy to become ‘a more vigorous partner in the search for answers to our most pressing social, civic, economic and moral problems.’ A major reason for the enduring reluctance of universities to heed that call lies with the inherent messiness, complexity, uncertainty and inter-connectedness of the ‘pressing problems’ of the day. The academic tradition is to reduce issues down to their component parts in ways that reflect disciplinary focuses that ignore systemic investigations into crucial inter-connections between those parts. There are few better examples here than the messy complexity and multi-dimensionality of the inter-relationships between agriculture, food and human health: ‘The Omnivores’ Trifecta.’ There are many issues here that demand urgent and critical attention in all of their systemic messiness. So what to do?

 

Dr. Richard Bawden is a Founding Director and Fellow of the Systemic Development Institute in Australia. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Sydney and currently an adjunct professor at Michigan State University. Between 2000 and 2007 he was a Visiting Distinguished University Professor at Michigan State University. Prior to that appointment he spent 20 years at Hawkesbury Agricultural College, which was incorporated into the University of Western Sydney (UWS) in 1989. From 1978 to 1993 he was Dean of Agriculture and Rural Development and was appointed Professor of Systemic Development in 1989 at the establishment of UWS.

 

This “conversation about our food future” is co-sponsored by

 

Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project

W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Food, Agriculture and Community Ethics

Collage of Agriculture & Natural Resources