2012 International Roundtable Speakers
International Roundtable 2012
Feeding the World: Globalization, Food, and Agriculture in the 21st Century
October 11–12, 2012
Joshua Muldavin teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in 2012 is a Visiting Scholar at the East West Center at the University of Hawaii. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of American Studies, China Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing. He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California-Berkeley, studying agrarian change and sustainable development in China. He has conducted numerous studies concerning post-Mao decollectivization, the impact of various countries’ foreign policy and international aid on China, and conservation and poverty alleviation in the Himalayan region. Recent publications include “NGOs and Sustainable Development,” Conference Proceedings of the Third Conference of UN-NGO-Irene/Asia Pacific (2008); “China and Climate Change: Can Technology and Markets Solve the Problem?,” Global Carbon Reduction: Developing New Strategies and Deploying New Technologies in Japan and the United States (2008); “The Politics of Transition: Critical Political Ecology, Classical Economics, and Ecological Modernization Theory in China,” The Political Geography Handbook (2008); and “Global Climate Change: Is China Really the Problem?,” Columns (2007). Two forthcoming articles are “Observations on the Environmental Dimensions of China’s Rise” and “Addressing Growing Vulnerability in Rural China: Village Strategies for Maintaining Socio-Ecological Security in the post-Mao Era.” In 2008, he co-founded The Action 2030 Institute, which is a nonprofit think tank focused on issues of Food, Agriculture, Environment, and Development. He served as Expert/Resource Person and Facilitator at the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil, in 2009. He also organized the First Sustainable Food and Agriculture Workshop and Film Festival in Beijing in March 2010, speaking on “The History of Industrial Agriculture.”
Here is an interesting story about Joshua Muldavin and a related slide show:
The Cowboy Geographer, Sarah Lawrence College
Excerpts from Beijing International Workshop on Sustainable Food and Agriculture, 2010: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMTzq0MiRpc&feature=player_embedded.
Rajeev Charles Patel is simultaneously a writer/producer/co-director for a documentary and book about the future of food; a Fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP); Visiting Scholar at the Center for African Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu in South Africa; and a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First. He received a Ph.D. in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University; an MSC (Econ) at the London School of Economics, University of London; and a B.A. (Honors) at Balliol College, University of Oxford. His recent books include The Value of Nothing (2009); Food Rebellions! Forging Food Sovereignty to Solve the Global Food Crisis (with Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck, 2009); Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Battle for the World Food System (2008); and Promised Land: Competing Visions of Agrarian Reform (with Rosset and Courville, 2006). A number of his lectures can be accessed online. Among other honors, he was selected by the Utne Reader as one of “50 Visionaries Changing Your World” (2010).
Articles recently written by Raj Patel may be accessed at:
- VIDEO: Edible Food
- Raj Patel: Food Rebellions and Political Accountability
- Droughts and Mirages in Washington and Beyond
- Attacks on Obama, Food Stamps, Newt Gingrich is “Racially Coding Poverty”
- The Value of Nothing-the $200 Hamburger
- The Meaning of Food Sovereignty
- The Value of Nothing
Ivette Perfecto is the George W. Pack Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan and an Adjunct Faculty member in the College of Graduate Studies at the University of Toledo in Ohio. She is also an Associate Faculty member in the Latina/o Studies Program, American Culture, as well as in the Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan and the Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo Agrario Rural, Universidad Agrária de la Habana, Cuba. She has been a visiting faculty member in universities in Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico. Perfecto received a Ph.D. in Ecology and Natural Resources and an M.S. in Biology, both from the University of Michigan. Her B.S. Cum Laude was earned in Biology at the Universidad Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico. She published Nature’s Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty (with Vandermeer and Wright, 2009) and A Breakfast of Biodiversity: The Political Ecology of Rain Forest Deforestation (with Vandermeer, 2nd edition, 2005). Recent examples of her peer-reviewed journal articles include “Global Food Security, Biodiversity Conservation and the Future of Agricultural Intensification,” Biological Conservation (with colleagues, 2012); “Effects of Industrial Agriculture on Global Warming and the Potential of Small-Scale Agroecological Farming to Mitigate those Effects,” CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources (with colleagues, 2011); and “The Agricultural Matrix as an Alternative to the Land-Sparing/Agricultural Intensification Model: Facing the Food and Biodiversity Crises,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (with Vandermeer, 2010). Perfecto has been a Fulbright Fellow and was awarded a 2010 Faculty Recognition Award (University of Michigan, university-wide award) and a 2007–08 Outstanding Faculty Award (by SNRE Student Government). She serves as Review Editor forEcoHealth, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, Ecology, and Ecological Monographs.In 2009, she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Steven L. Peterson became the Director of Sourcing Sustainability at General Mills in August 2010. Previously, he led External Manufacturing at General Mills from 2005 to 2010. He was also a member of the Integration team that created the combined Supply Chain resulting from the merger of General Mills and Pillsbury. Prior to joining General Mills, he had fifteen years of experience with Pillsbury, holding positions of increasing responsibility within Supply Chain Operations and Sourcing, starting as a Commodity Analyst and finally holding the position of Senior Director Ingredient Sourcing. Consequently, Peterson has been involved for many years in collaborative manufacturing and sourcing. His educational background includes an M.S. degree in Agriculture and Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Peterson also owns and manages Peterson Farms, a grain and livestock operation in Paynesville, Minnesota. His family has promoted conservation agriculture for many years. His father, Lloyd, led the establishment of both the N. Fork Crow River Watershed District and the Lake Koronis Lake Association. In 2000, Peterson Farms was named the Stearns County Conservation Farm of the Year. Today, Peterson Farms works closely with the Stearns County SWCD promoting conservation across central Minnesota. In addition, Peterson serves on several non-profit boards including Park Nicollet Foundation, Minnesota Agri-Growth Council, Presbyterian Homes, and the Paynesville Area Community Foundation.
Jennifer L. Shaw is Head of Sustainability in North America for Syngenta where she leads initiatives to align Syngenta businesses with emerging trends in sustainability. Prior to this role, she held several leadership positions in Regulatory Policy, Issues Management, Stewardship, Sustainable Agriculture, and Environmental Risk Analyses. Dr. Shaw led strategic initiatives to address major environmental challenges for U.S. agriculture and has had several leadership and expert roles in industry and government multi-stakeholder initiatives. She began her career with ICI Plant Protection in the United Kingdom as an ecologist, then went on to manage agro-ecosystem field programs in the United States, and established an Aquatic Ecosystem research facility for collaborative research between industry and academia. Shaw was educated in Scotland and has a B.Sc. with 1st Class Honors in Agricultural Zoology from the University of Glasgow. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Ecology and Epidemiology from the University of Aberdeen and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology.
Tattfoo Tan is a public artist whose practice seeks to find an immediate, direct, and effective way of exploring issues related to the individual in society. His work collapses the categories of “art” and “life” into one. Through the employment of multiple forms of media and various platforms of presentation, Tan promotes group participation. Within this collaborative practice both minds and bodies are engaged in actions that transform the making of art into a ritualized and shared experience. In keeping with the spirit of this transformative act, Tan prefers to develop projects that are ephemeral and conceptual in nature. Some titles of these projects give a sense of his themes: Eat Draw Play; Cuisine du Jour; Secret Garden; The People’s Potluck; Raising Chickens in NYC; and Mobile Gardens.
His work has been shown in various venues and institutions, including the Queens Museum of Art, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Artisphere, The City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Eugene Lang College New School for Liberal Arts, Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, The Center for Book Arts, Bronx River Art Center, Jamaica Center of Arts and Learning, Aljira–A Center for Contemporary Art, Project Row Houses, Redux Contemporary Art Center, and The Laundromat Project. Tan has been recognized for his effort, service, and artistic contributions to the community and is the proud recipient of a Proclamation from the City of New York. He also received an award at the Twenty-Eighth Annual Awards for Excellence in Design by the Public Design Commission of the City of New York for his design and branding of the super graphic on the Bronx River Art Center.
Visit his youtube channel. It highlights some of the projects he has done.