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.

Regional, World Agricultural Sustainability Explored

Southern Oklahomans have the opportunity to hear an authority on agricultural sustainability issues of interest both regionally and globally.

ARDMORE, Okla. (Jan. 11, 2002) — Southern Oklahomans have long recognized the importance of agriculture to improving the lives of people around the world. In recent years, the recognized benefits of sustainable agriculture have grown. This will be the subject to be featured on Jan. 24 as a continuation of the 2001-02 Profiles and Perspectives series sponsored by the Noble Foundation.

Dennis T. Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues in Churchville, Va., and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, travels to Ardmore as the second presenter in this series to discuss the sustainability of world agriculture and regional agricultural issues. The program will begin at 7 p.m. at the Plainview Public School auditorium, 1140 S. Plainview Road in Ardmore. The program is free and open to the public.

Avery is also 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.

"We are honored to have Dennis Avery as a part of our Profiles and Perspectives series. His knowledge of agriculture and world-wide food issues is astounding," said Mary Kate Garner, program associate and member of the Profiles and Perspectives Committee at the Noble Foundation. "Mr. Avery will also enlighten the audience with several fun facts such as how many extra cattle the world would need if plants weren’t able to obtain nitrogen from the atmosphere."

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.

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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