As part of its “One Book, One Campus, One Community” program, Cornell College is hosting a food policy panel on Monday, Oct. 31 at 3:30 p.m. in the Hedges conference room in the Thomas Commons.
The panel, which will feature three experts on sustainable farming, Frederick L. Kirschenmann, Francis Thicke and Laura Krouse, will focus on the advantages and challenges of local farming, the role of public policy on food supply and ways college students can get involved with local farming.
The event is one of several based around topics found in this year’s “One Book” selection, “Farm City” by Novella Carpenter, who spoke at Cornell on Sept. 22.
Kirschenmann, a longtime national and international leader in sustainable agriculture, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. He also oversees management of his family’s 2,600-acre certified organic farm in North Dakota and is a professor in the ISU Department of Religion and Philosophy. He has written extensively about agriculture and ethics.
Thicke and his wife, Susan, run a dairy farm in Fairfield, Iowa, where they have an 80-cow, grass-based, organic dairy. They process their milk on the farm, making bottled milk, cheese and yogurt, and they market it all locally through grocery stores and restaurants. He has served on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, the Iowa Food Policy Council, the USDA State Technical Committee and the ISU Extension Advisory Committee. He has worked previously for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
Krouse has owned Abbe Hills Farm near Mount Vernon since 1988. She grows corn, hay, oats, and the garden on the 54 acres of the farm that are crop ground. Krouse started Abbe Hills Farm Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program in 1996. As it has grown, the CSA has become a critical component in the profitability and sustainability of the farm and serves nearly 200 families in the area. Krouse taught in Cornell’s biology department for 20 years, and left the college in 2008 to devote her full attention to the farm.
The panel is co-sponsored by the Berry Center for Economics, Business and Public Policy and Cornell’s Russell D. Cole Library.