Farming, GMOs and Food Choices on the Docket at K-State

 

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are a polarizing topic among many food minds. There are passionate arguments and advocates on both sides of the issue and all parties agree they only want what is best for their families. The volatile nature of the GMO debate has led to a plethora of resources, fact sheets and resources all developed with consumer education in mind.

In order to provide engaging discussion and clarification to a popular topic, two consumer advocacy groups, the Kansas Farm Food Connection and Food For Thought, are partnering to provide interested consumers with the opportunity to discuss GMOs with a panel of experts.

Additionally, the film Farmland will be shown in advance of the panel to provide the audience with a firsthand look at various methods of raising food ranging from organic to conventional and everything in between. Farmland is directed by Academy Award-winning director James Moll and follows five farmers and ranchers through their production cycles as they raise vegetables, pigs, cattle and fruit.

The film will screen Nov. 12 at 6:30 pm in Justin Hall room 109 on the Kansas State University campus. The film will be followed by a GMO panel featuring Dr. Kevin Folta, professor and chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida. Dr. Folta is a renowned expert on GMOs and from 2007 to 2010 he helped lead the project to sequence the strawberry genome.
Also featured on the panel will be two farmers – one who grows GMO crops and another who uses non-GMO seeds to grow crops. The panel will strive to answer audience questions about food production, science, technology and global hunger.

Free bacon samples will be provided to attendees courtesy of the Kansas Pork Association.
This event promises lively discussion from various viewpoints and is not one to be missed! For more information about the event, please contact Meagan Cramer, Kansas Farm Bureau, cramerm@kfb.org or call 785-587-6821.

Upson Lecture Series to Address Big Food

What is Big Food?

Why do some consumers fear Big Food and why do others hate it?

Food For Thought is excited to host Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity, who will address these very questions with his lecture "Size Matters: Why We Love to Hate 'Big Food'" on March 2, 2015 at 7 pm in the K-State Student Union Forum Hall.

The event is free and open to the public and FREE BACON  sponsored by the Kansas Pork Association will be given to the first 200 attendees.

This is a lecture that is sure to ignite feelings and discussion and you won't want to miss it! Please join us in Manhattan on March 2 for a hot-button lecture that will get you thinking!

*The Upson Lecture Series has been fully endowed by the generous support of the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine classes of 1962 and 1966.

My "New" Book

With much disdain and after an onslaught of emails over the all-school listserv I finally decided to drag my tired carcass up the 4 flights of stairs to the top floor of Trotter Hall (ok so I may have taken the elevator) where the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine Library was holding their annual book sale. Would there really be anything worth reading in a library that I couldn't conjure up with a mouse click and a little help from Google? My hypothesis was no.

 Not surprisingly, there was a slew of now "outdated" technical textbooks and references of the subject matter you expect from a top tier veterinary college (shameless plug): Physiology, Toxicology, Pathology, Medicine,the list goes on and on. Once worth hundreds of dollars each, these old relics were now being offered up for the scrap price of $5 a piece. Oh well I thought to myself, I needed a break from my desk anyways.But as I turned to leave, something caught my eye. There it sat, brown and tattered, on the bottom shelf of sale items, between a brightly colored edition of Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy and an acid-base homeostasis and disorders text that would make Henderson and Hasselbalch cringe. The spine read United States Department of Agriculture Year Book 1920.

As I began to thumb through the pages, I knew it was a keeper. Reading this book is like getting a visit from the Ghost of Agriculture Past. In fact its more like a slap on the back of the head than a visit. Most people in my generation are just down right oblivious to how lucky we are have today's technologies and production systems and at times I can count myself as one of them. On the other hand, I was amazed to to see that many things that I have viewed as only problems of my generation were discussed in depth as major concerns almost century ago.

I thought it would be a shame to not share some of it with you all and along the way I hope we will all get a little better understanding of why we do things we do today and how we used to do them. STAY TUNED!!!

Cheers,

DJ 

P.S.- Here's a great recipe I just stumbled onto for Pork Medallions on a Bed of Creamed Corn! It comes from the good folks over at the Kansas Pork Association. :)