NEAC

Events Manager

Planning has begun for the 2009 Spring NEAC Membership meeting, to take place May 2, 2009 and we are pleased to announce that Dr. John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Ikerd is one of the most lively and informed voices in sustainable ag today and he will speak with us on ‘Reclaiming the Right to Eat Locally’.

Fifty years ago, most people ate locally – most of their foods came from local farms. Over the years, farmers were bribed and coerced into producing agricultural commodities, rather than food, which are shipped out of their communities for processing and manufacturing. Consumers were bribed and coerced into relying on foods processed and manufactured elsewhere, at the expense of their personal health as well as the health of their local economies and communities. This was not the result of impersonal free markets, but instead an intentional consequence of corporate strategies and government policies. Our farming communities have been transformed into economic colonies where local resources are extracted for the benefit of outside investors. However, Americans have a fundamental right to protect their communities – their people, natural resources, and economies – from outside exploitation. The logical place to begin reclaiming that right is to reclaim the right to eat locally. Communities all across American are proving that it can be done.

John Ikerd,
John was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He worked in private industry for a time and spent thirty years in various professorial positions at North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Georgia, and the University of Missouri before retiring in early 2000. Since retiring, he spends most of his time writing and speaking on issues related to sustainability with an emphasis on economics and agriculture. Ikerd is author of Sustainable Capitalism, A Return to Common Sense, Small Farms are Real Farms, and Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture.

More complete background information and selected writings are available at http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/