AMES, Iowa -- An organic food educator and a plant biotechnologist who teamed up to write a book on the potential combination of biotechnology and sustainable farming methods will speak at Iowa State University on Dec. 3.
Authors Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchak will talk about their book, "Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food," at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 3, in the Memorial Union Sun Room. Their presentation is free and open to the public.
Ronald is professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis, where she studies the role that genes play in a plant's response to its environment. Her laboratory has genetically engineered rice that is resistant to diseases and flooding, which are serious problems for rice crops in Asia and Africa. Her work has been published in the journals Science and Nature, and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on CNN and National Public Radio.
Adamchak, a 20-year organic crop farmer and former inspector for California Certified Organic Farmers, has dedicated his career to the expansion and development of organic farming. He is the Market Garden coordinator at the UC Davis Certified Organic Student Farm. The Market Garden provides experiential learning opportunities to students interested in organic agriculture.
The talk is sponsored by: Department of Agronomy; Bioethics Program; Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture; Council on Sustainability; Department of Genetics, Development, and Cell Biology; Department of Plant Pathology; Center for Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses; Interdepartmental Genetics Program; Plant Sciences Institute; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Program; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology; and Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body. The following student organizations are also sponsors: Student Organic Farm; Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture Student Association; Graduate Agronomy Club; Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology Undergraduate Club; and Natural Resource Ecology and Management Graduate Student Organization.