Media advisory issued January 11, 2002, effective immediately.
For media inquiries, contact Caroline Booth Lara, Communications Specialist, (580) 224-6379.
  email: cblara@noble.org

Note: This event occurred in 2002. Please see our news releases section for upcoming events.

World Agricultural Status Explored, Explained

Dennis Avery, in his free presentation for the public, will discuss an issue near and dear to the hearts of many Southern Oklahomans – agriculture, and its role in the market, both regionally and globally.

ARDMORE, Okla. (Jan. 21, 2002) — Agriculture is a topic of major importance to not only Southern Oklahomans, but residents across the state and country as well. In the year 2000 alone, agriculture contributed $7.1 billion to the state’s economy. Local farmers and ranchers hope to see that number increase as new global markets are developed and opened.

Dennis T. Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues in Churchville, Va., and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, travels to Ardmore Jan. 24 as the second presenter in the Noble Foundation’s Profiles and Perspectives series. He will discuss the sustainability of world agriculture and regional agricultural issues. The program begins at 7 p.m. at the Plainview Public School auditorium, 1140 S. Plainview Road in Ardmore. It is free and the public is encouraged to attend.

Avery is editor of Global Food Quarterly, the newsletter for the Center, and writes a weekly column for The BridgeNews Forum. He has been quoted in such publications as Time, The Washington Post and The Farm Journal.

Avery provides a number of interesting agriculture-related facts in his presentation.

From 1980-88, Avery was an agricultural analyst for the U.S. Department of State, assessing the foreign-policy implications of food and farming developments worldwide. He continues at the Hudson Institute to monitor developments in world food production, farm product demand, safety and security of food supplies, and sustainability of world agriculture. As a staff member of the President’s National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, he wrote the Commission’s landmark report, "Food and Fiber for the Future."

Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin. He holds awards for outstanding performance from three different government agencies and was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983. He has appeared on most of the nation’s major television networks, including a program discussing the bacterial dangers of organic foods on ABC-TV’s "20/20."

The next Profiles program on March 12 features Dr. Mark Plotkin, an ethnobotanist who has spent almost two decades working with shamans in Central and South America, learning the health benefits of healing plants and traditions among the undeveloped tribes of the region. He, too, has been featured in Time magazine.

###

Photo: Dennis T. Avery (192k JPEG)

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a non-profit organization conducting agricultural, forage biotechnological, and plant biology research; providing grants to numerous non-profit charitable, educational and health organizations; and assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs.

To learn more, visit the Noble Foundation Web site at http://www.noble.org.

More news releases available at www.noble.org/Press_Release