A Conversation with Wendell Berry
A Discussion on the Changing Landscape of American Agriculture, Local Economies and Rural Life

Sunday, April 15, 2007
Great Hall, ISU Memorial Union
Ames

Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the 2007 Shivvers Lecture in memory of John Shivvers, who farmed near Knoxville, Iowa. Other sponsors include the Gamma Sigma Delta Honorary Society for Agriculture at the ISU Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB).

More than 800 people came to hear Berry's anecdotes, wisdom in a far-ranging discussion on many topics.

Poet, essayist, farmer, and novelist Wendell Berry is joined by daughter Mary Berry Smith and Iowa farmers Francis Thicke of Fairfield and Laura Krouse of Mt. Vernon. Long-time sustainable agriculture proponent Laura Jackson, who teaches biology at the University of Northern Iowa, served as moderator.

Wendell Berry, who has taught English at New York University and at the University of Kentucky, lives on a farm just five miles from his birthplace in northern Kentucky. He is celebrated not only as a writer but as a philosopher, ethicist, and conservationist. Mary Berry Smith lives in north-central Kentucky, not far from her father, on a traditional cattle and tobacco farm. She has diversified her operation to include grape growing and wine-making in the centuries-old tradition of family farms in Europe.

Quotes, more photos, Summer 2007 Leopold Letter

Berry's vision for sustainable living still resonates [PDF], Article by Dave Murphy, in May/June Grassroots newsletter of the Iowa Farmer's Union

'No final solutions' to farming problems, [PDF] Article by Heidi Marttila-Losure for the Ames Tribune, April 17, 2007

A conversation with Wendell Berry's daughter, [PDF] Article by Heidi Marttila-Losure for the Ames Tribune, April 10, 2007

Above: Members of the panel: Thicke, Berry Smith, Berry and Krouse; Below, the booksigning.


 

Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 209 Curtiss Hall,
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1050 PH: (515)294-3711
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