Food access will be the topic of discussion as Michigan State University (MSU) hosts its first “Our Table” event on Nov. 16, the Thursday before Thanksgiving.

“Our Table” is a series of public roundtable discussions in which MSU brings together food experts, agricultural producers, health professionals and community members to listen to each other and foster dialogue. It is part of Food@MSU, a new campus-wide initiative led by the colleges of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR), Arts and Letters, and Communication Arts and Sciences that aims to help consumers make more informed decisions about food, and its impacts on health and the planet.

Join us for an exclusive screening of FOOD EVOLUTION, a film from Academy Award nominee Scott Hamilton Kennedy and narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson!

Amid a polarized debate marked by passion, suspicion and confusion, FOOD EVOLUTION explores the controversy surrounding GMOs and food. Traveling from Hawaiian papaya groves, to banana farms in Uganda to the cornfields of Iowa, this fascinating film wrestles with the emotions and the science driving one of the most heated arguments of our time.

Gordon Henry, John Norder and Christie Poitra have received the 2017 Michigan State University (MSU) Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Creative Activities from the MSU Office of Outreach and Engagement for their work on the Indigistory project. 

Indigistory is a collaborative partnership between the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College, the MSU Native American Institute (NAI), the Michigan History Center, the MSU Hub for Innovation Learning and Technology, and the MSU College of Arts and Letters. It was started by Henry, a professor in the MSU Department of English.

Carl Folke, a world-renowned Swedish scientist who focuses on the need for people to be in partnership with nature, will deliver the 2017 Rachel Carson Distinguished Lecture.

Dr. Folke is founder and director of science of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, of which is he is a member. His work focuses on the premise that supporting ecosystems is necessary for social and economic development, stewardship and governing and managing for resilience and transformation in social and ecological systems that are intertwined.

In short, global sustainability demands that humanity remain within Earth’s operating boundaries. The relevant question then becomes: What will it take?

Herbert Kasozi, a doctoral student in the Research on the Ecology of Carnivores and their Prey (RECaP) Laboratory in the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, was named one of 24 Russell E. Train fellows by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF).

Kasozi, who hails from Uganda where he earned a master’s degree at Makerere University, joins other outstanding conservationists from 11 countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America whose collective work will “help build capacity for climate adaptation, increase the number of individuals working on sustainable food systems, and protect crucial ecosystems” throughout the world, according to WWF. Each individual was selected through a competitive, merit-based process from a pool of more than 150 applicants. 

Adrian Schunk, Michigan Future Farmers of American (FFA) president and Michigan State University (MSU) freshman, won the Prepared Speech Contest at the National FFA Prepared Public Speaking Leadership Development Event Friday.

Schunk, an Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Education major in the MSU Department of Community Sustainability and Mason High School graduate, spoke about the need for greater consumer education around the issue of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food. She won the Prepared Public Speaking Contest at the Michigan FFA State Convention in March on the same topic.