A United Nation’s sustainable development goal is to “end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030.

Is this achievable? Complex factors impact our food supply. Poverty. Economic and trade conditions. Public policy. Private enterprise and supply chains. Food waste and shortages. Climate change. Clean water access. Human conflicts and migration.

What food system changes will help us reach this goal? Our expert panel will discuss these issues, their work and how Cornell is at the forefront of feeding the world on a local and global level.

Event Details:
Date:Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Time: 6:30-9:00 p.m – reception, panel discussion, and Q&A
6:30-7:15 p.m. – reception
7:15-8:10 p.m. – introduction and panel discussion
8:10-8:30 p.m. – Q&A
8:30-9:00 p.m. – alumni mingling
9:00 – event ends

Location:Cornell ILR School, 570 Lexington Ave., 12th floor, New York, NY 10022
Cost:$40 per person, $30 young alumni (classes 2010-2019)

Includes wine, beer, soft drinks, and appetizer reception

Register | See who’s coming

Event questions? Contact Karen Barnes
Registration Questions? Contact Erika Axe

About the speakers:

Chris Barrett is the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management and an International Professor of Agriculture, at Dyson, Professor in the Department of Economics, and a Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. He is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Food Policy, edits the Palgrave Macmillan book series Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, and the Elsevier Handbook of Agricultural Economics, and previously was editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

He has served in leadership roles as the Deputy Dean and Dean of Academic Affairs of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell, as the David J. Nolan Director of Cornell’s Dyson School, as President of the Association of Christian Economists, as Chair of the International Section of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and on a variety of boards and panels, including on the Independent Science and Development Council of the CGIAR. He has won numerous university, national and international awards for teaching, research and public outreach, and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and the African Association of Agricultural Economists.

His more than 300 publications have been cited more than 36,000 times, placing him among the top five globally in the agricultural economics, development economics, food security, poverty, and resource economics fields, according to Google Scholar. He has won more than $33 million in extramural research grants from various corporate, foundation, government agency and nongovernmental organization sponsors. He has supervised more than 100 graduate students and post-docs, many of whom are now faculty and staff at leading universities and research institutes worldwide. He and his wife are blessed with five adult children and a wonderful dog.

Rachel Bezner-Kerr  PhD ’06 is a Professor in Development Sociology at Cornell University with a background in environmental science and international development. She does long-term research in Malawi and Tanzania, using participatory methods to test the impacts of agroecological approaches on livelihoods, nutrition and sustainable land management for rural communities.

She served on a project team of the United Nations High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security & Nutrition examined the potential for agroecology to address food security and nutrition. She is also a Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on climate change impacts and adaptation of food systems for the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. She is also the director of the Community Food Systems minor in Cornell University, which provides engaged learning experiences for students with organizations working on sustainable agriculture and food justice issues. When she is not working, Rachel loves hanging out with her family, gardening and hiking.

Dr. Roy Steiner MS ’88, PhD ’91 is the Managing Director, Food at the Rockefeller Foundation leading multi-year initiatives to advance a more nourishing and sustainable food system. Previously he was a Senior Director at the Omidyar Network where he worked across strategic initiatives and with the board to build a best in class learning organization as well as develop their Agtech porfolio.

Roy also served for nearly a decade at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he was the Deputy Director and Founding Member of the Agricultural Development Initiative in the foundation’s Global Development Program. As Deputy Director, Dr. Steiner managed a professional team responsible for a $400M grant portfolio in the area of sustainable farmer productivity that included irrigation and water management, seed systems, agronomy, farmer organizations, gender, human capital and Information Communication Technology initiatives.

Moreover, he has conceptualized and helped develop innovative initiatives including the Agricultural Transformation Agency of Ethiopia, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, the Human Centered Design toolkit and the Digital Soil Map of Africa. 

Robert M. Goodman CALS ’67, PhD ’73 has served as the Executive Dean of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Executive Director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, and a Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources at Rutgers University.
 
Though a plant virologist by training, his recent work has been in microbiology, specifically on the diversity of microorganisms in soil that are recalcitrant to cultivation. He co-developed the approach for microbial biology studies now widely called metagenomics. His research has appeared in premier journals, including Nature, Science, Virology, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on topics that include soil metagenomics and the discovery of the geminiviruses.
 
After earning his Ph.D., Bob was a NSF/NATO post-doctoral fellow at the John Innes Institute in Norwich, UK. He joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as assistant professor in 1974 and was promoted to associate professor in 1978 and full professor in 1981. While there, he served as the virologist on the USAID-funded International Soybean Program. 
 
In 1982, he joined Calgene, Inc., an early plant biotechnology company and one of the pioneers in the genetic engineering of crop species, and served as the executive vice-president of Research & Development. In 1991, he joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison as professor of plant pathology and environmental studies, and chaired the undergraduate major in molecular biology. 
 
Bob has held several senior leadership positions, including membership on the Board of Trustees of the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) and serving as chair of the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources section of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS). He is the founder of the McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program and led its oversight committee from 1993-2005. 

Since 2015, he has led a $29.6 million project funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to develop a comprehensive, interdisciplinary program to create job opportunities for youth in the agriculture and food sector in Greece, alongside the Agricultural University of Athens and the American Farm School.

Bob is an elected fellow of AAAS and the American Academy of Microbiology, and has worked abroad in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.