Dr. John Hodges Lecture on Sustainable Agriculture

Noted author and speaker on agricultural trends, Dr. John Hodges will present a lecture titled, Sustainable Agriculture and Food are now at Risk at events in Vancouver, Victoria and Abbotsford, sponsored by the Vancouver branch of the British Columbia Institute of Agrologists and the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems. The presentations will be open to BCIA members, students and the general public. Fees are $10, $5 for students and $15 at the door.

Agriculture is rushing into a new era in which producing food has given way to making money. Agro-biodiversity as changed from a natural resource to an input for business. The environment is reshaped to suit mass production. Rural life no longer revolves around farming. Genetic engineering is remaking plant and livestock species into efficient genetically-modified machines. Individual farm animals are no longer named but exist as numbers in mammoth production units shaped to serve the market. Farming as practised for millennia is no longer the central focus of rural communities. Food is no longer sold locally but shipped, traded, modified, processed, packaged and prepared for immediate consumption. Food is cheaper, more uniform and less tasty. The market for food is not driven by consumer choice but by high pressure competitive advertising. In Western society people no longer eat to live but live to over-eat fast food many times a day while obesity increases. Slow food meals are no longer the focus of daily family life. Agriculture and food are being reshaped by a business plan to colonize the food market.

Are there limits to these changes? What are the boundaries? Where, how and when, if at all, will these pressures be stopped? And who or what will stop them?

Dr. John Hodges is an internationally recognized speaker and author on the trends of agriculture and food including globalization, sustainability, poverty, genetic modification and ethics. Dr. Hodges was responsible at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome for genetic programs for the improvement of farm animals in the developing world and for the conservation of animal biodiversity. He was a Professor of Animal Genetics at the University of British Columbia and earlier taught at Cambridge University. He served in agribusiness as Head of the Production Division of the Milk Marketing Board of England and Wales. He has degrees in Agriculture (Reading), Animal Production (Cambridge), Animal Genetics (Reading), and Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

The Vancouver presentation will be held on the UBC campus inromm 166 of the MacMillan Building,2357 Main Mall at 6:30 pm Thursday, November 17, 2005. The presentation will be followed by the Annual General Meeting of the Vancouver branch of the BCIA. Registration required, please contact Cathleen Nichols, P.Ag., Director (Van. Branch) BCIA.

The Vancouver Island presentation will be held at 11:00am November 12, 2005 at Holiday Inn, 3020 Blanshard, Victoria. For more information contact Dave Spittlehouse.

The Fraser Valley presentation is at 7:00 pm November 24, 2005 at Rancho, 35110 Delair, Abbotsford. For more information contact p.ag@shaw.ca. or call 1-877-855-929.

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 10:16 AM on November 9, 2005