Re-Thinking Agri-culture: As if the Real World Matters
Date: Monday, October 20th, 2003 
Location: Ames, Iowa
Jules Pretty, an internationally known British scholar and director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex (UK), is best known for his comprehensive study of more than 200 sustainable farming projects on 70 million acres in 52 countries. His analysis showed that the use of sustainable agriculture practices can lead to substantial increases in production -perhaps as much as 150 percent for some root crops. He has written more than 150 scholarly papers and eight books. The most recent are Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature and Guide to a Green Planet.
Additional work has embraced such issues as: suggesting a five-point strategy for a national plan for reconstruction of Britain's farm industry; outlining measures to operationalize "sustainability"; identifying point-counterpoint arguments for the benefits and drawbacks of local food systems, and presenting the case for open citizens juries as a means of linking sustainability and deliberative democracy.
Pretty also serves as deputy-chair of Great Britain's Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE).
He is a frequent speaker and contributor to media reports, and has worked with the BBC on several nationally-broadcast programs. A member of the Institute of Biology and British Agricultural History Society, he edits the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.
The seminar was sponsored by the Leopold Center's Ecology Initiative and ISU's Bioethics Program.
Related information
View overheads from presentation [PDF]
Ecologist Jules Pretty challenges traditional notions about agriculture - Winter 2003 Leopold Letter
Guest commentary: What is farming for? by Jules Pretty [PDF]
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture |
Ames, Iowa 50011 |
(515) 294-3711 |
leocenter@iastate.edu