Sixth Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture Planned

The sixth John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture, which honors a retired Iowa State University agronomy professor, will be April 6-7. Calestous Juma will be the featured speaker at two events. Juma is professor of the Practice of International Development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and director of the Science, Technology and Globalization Project. Juma's first talk will be April 6 at 7 p.m. in the Scheman Building at the Iowa State Center in Ames. His presentation is titled "Reinventing African Economies: Technological Innovation and the Sustainability Transition." There will be a reception at 6 p.m. in the same location. The second event will be a lecture and town meeting April 7 at 12 p.m. at Grinnell College in Grinnell. "Shaping the New Biosociety" is the topic for Juma's presentation, which will be held in the Steiner Building, Room 116. Both lectures will be followed by comments from invited guests and questions and discussion from the audience. Both events are free and open to the public. Juma chaired the United Nations Millennium Project's Task Force on Science, Technology and Innovation. He is highly recognized for his contributions to policy research on the applications of technology to sustainable development. Juma chairs the Committee on Global Challenges and Directions for Agricultural Biotechnology of the U.S. National Academies and the Panel on Modern Biotechnology of the African Union. The colloquium honors John Pesek, who served terms as president of both the American Society of Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America. His research led to a better understanding of the effects of farming practices on the environment. In the late 1980s, Pesek chaired a National Research Council committee that produced "Alternative Agriculture," a groundbreaking report that documented how farming systems that use less pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and fuel can be productive and profitable. The Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture is the primary sponsor of the Pesek Colloquium. The colloquium is cosponsored this year by the Iowa State University Department of Agronomy, along with several other ISU programs including the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, College of Agriculture, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, F. Wendell Miller Lecture Fund, Office of Bioethics, Plant Sciences Institute, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development and Kenyan Student Association. Cosponsors also include Alliant Energy, UNEP Global 500 Forum, Bethesda Lutheran Church Tanzania Ministry Team, Iowa Farmers Union and Grinnell College.