The Cost of Our Long Distance Food System
Food is available without regard to place or season and the costs of this long distance food system are discussed. Globalization complicates our food supply even further - over half of our fresh fruit in 2006 was imported with limited testing.  This is a threat to our health and security. Industrialized approach to agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuels. We need to move back to a sustainabile model of agriculture.

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The Future of (Sustainable) Agriculture:1/2:Fred Kirschenmann

Fred Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture talks about how being organic doesn't automatically mean you are in the camp of sustainability. Greening up what you are doing isn't going far enough and move from concept of steady state to resiliency. We have been drawing upon natures reserves of stored energy (hydrocarbons) and water resources at unsustainable rates, and those finite resources are diminishing rapidly; technology alone, will not provide substitute solutions.

Fred Kirschenmann is a long-time leader in the sustainable agriculture movement, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and a third-generation farmer (an organic farmer himself).  A record from his talk at the Organicology conference in Portland, Oregon. 

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The Future of (Sustainable) Agriculture— Part 2 of 2
Fred Kirschenmann, a long-time leader in the sustainable agriculture movement, Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and a third-generation farmer (an organic farmer himself), completes his thoughtful reflections upon the future of agriculture from his talk at the Organicology conference in Portland, Oregon. He begins with discussing the "third elephant" in the room- climate change. It's here already around the world in places such as Australia, China, California.

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