Producing enough food to feed our growing population—on degraded lands, with diminishing resources, in a changing climate, without further loss of natural habitats and biodiversity—may be the single greatest challenge facing humanity.
According to Pamela Ronald, distinguished professor of Plant Pathology and the Genome Center at the University of California at Davis, meeting that challenge will take all appropriate technologies. Prof. Ronald investigates how food plants respond to environmental stresses, and develops genetic strategies to help plants thrive.
A casual online search of the terms “GMO” and “Organic Farming” leads one to conclude that these concepts are polar opposites. Not so, argues Ronald in Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, co-written with husband Raoul Adamchak, who teaches organic farming at the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute.
Come hear Prof. Ronald describe a hopeful new agricultural ethic, one that integrates the principles of sustainability with the latest advances in technology, preparing us to meet the food challenges of tomorrow.
