Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 14:53:08 -0500
>
>“Feeding the People and Maintaining the Planet:
>Meeting the Challenges by 2050.”
>
>Jason Clay,
>Senior Vice President
>World Wildlife Fund
>
>Thursday, April 22, 2010
>
>Reception @ 5:00 pm
>Seminar from 5:30 – 6:45 pm
>
>147 Communication Arts Building,
>Michigan State University
A note on parking. The parking in the garage just next to
Communication Arts bldg is free after 6 pm. There are meters in the garage if
you don’t want to risk a ticket.
>
>RSVP, Jennifer Patterson at
><mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask] by THURSDAY April
15.
>
>We live on a finite planet. WWF’s Living Planet
Index suggests that we
>are currently at 1.3 planets, exceeding the Earth’s
carrying capacity.
>By almost any measure, producing food has the largest
impact of any
>human activity.
>Most estimates suggest that we will need to produce
twice as many
>calories on the same amount of land we use today if
we want to maintain
>biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
>We know that what may be sustainable with 6.7 billion
people will not
>be sustainable with 9 billion people, and that no
single strategy will
>be sufficient to address this issue. WWF is
implementing a strategy
>with the 100 global companies that are the most
important in changing
>the way we produce 15 key commodities.
>We help companies and producers align incentives
throughout supply
>chains to ensure long-term partnerships. WWF has
identified 10 “food
>wedges” that will allow us to produce enough
food for all and still
>have a living planet.
>These strategies focus on genetics, target crops,
better practices,
>rehabilitation of degraded land, technology, property
rights, waste and
>post harvest losses, overconsumption, and carbon.
These strategies will
>allow us to increase food production while
simultaneously reducing its
>footprint.
>
>In addition to his position as WWF’s Senior
Vice President of Market
>Transformation, Dr. Jason Clay manages the WWF
Network’s private sector
>advisory board and led the development of WWF’s
private sector
>engagement strategy. He is a leader within WWF and
the NGO community on
>identifying global trends and issues as well as
supply chain
>management. Dr. Clay has co-convened
multi-stakeholder roundtables to
>reduce the social and environmental impacts of such
products as salmon,
>soy, sugarcane, and cotton, and he helped draft the
principles and
>criteria for sustainable palm oil. Dr. Clay has run a
family farm,
>taught at Harvard and Yale, worked in the U.S.
Department of
>Agriculture, and spent more than twenty-five years
working with human
>rights and environmental organizations. He earned a
Ph.D. at Cornell
>University in anthropology and international
agriculture, and is the
>author of more than 250 articles and 15 books on the
topics of
>environment, agriculture, aquaculture, and poverty
alleviation.
>
>This “conversation about our food future”
is co-sponsored by
>
>Sustainable Michigan Endowed Project
>College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
Michigan Department of
>Natural Resources and Environment
>
Vicki Morrone
303 Natural Resources Bldg
C.S. Mott Group
Dept of CARRS
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-3542/517-282-3557 (cell)
www.MichiganOrganic.msu.edu for
information on organic and sustaianable farming and news & events