KU News Release

Expert on native foods and agriculture to speak at KU

LAWRENCE — To help celebrate Earth Day and draw attention to endangered foods and dwindling food diversity, the University of Kansas will offer a talk by acclaimed naturalist and native food preservationist Gary Nabhan.

Nabhan will speak about renewing food traditions and the threatened extinction of native foods and agriculture at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, in Spooner Hall. The talk is free.

Nabham, former director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, has become a leader in conserving native plant agriculture. He has worked with several communities to bring indigenous foods back into use for disease prevention and landscape restoration and to honor traditional knowledge.

A MacArthur fellow and author of 20 books, Nabham is the founder of the Renewing America’s Food Traditions Alliance. The alliance has identified more than 1,000 seeds, fruits, nuts, fish and game that are threatened or endangered by the homogenization of the food supply and continuing industrialization of agriculture.

As part of his visit to the university, Nabham will participate in a local foods dinner and panel discussion at 5:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, at Ecumenical Christian Ministries north of the KU campus. The dinner, which costs $5, will include a discussion with Nabhan; Rhonda Janke of the Kansas State University Horticulture Department; and Mercedes Taylor-Puckett, coordinator of the Lawrence Downtown Farmer’s Market.

Sponsors for the events are the Kansas Biological Survey, the Commons, the Center for Sustainability, the Community Mercantile and Ecumenical Campus Ministries.

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