SAES affiliate bringing MacArthur award winner to N.C.

The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) is bringing Will Allen to Raleigh for its 2009 Sustainable Agriculture Lecture on Nov. 9. Allen’s Growing Power Inc. in Milwaukee has become a national model for adapting community supported agriculture to work for inner-city consumers, and he was selected for of one of the 2008 MacArthur Fellowships (the “genius award”) for urban farming initiatives he has developed. Allen will be discussing “Steps to Successful Urban Farming” during a talk that will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the McKimmon Center on the N.C. State campus.  This talk will be free and open to the public, but seating is limited. The SAES, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State, and the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Sciences operate the CEFS jointly. Among its research units is a Small Farm Center, and the CEFS also has swine, dairy, organic cropping, farm systems and pasture-based beef units devoted to innovative practices for advancing sustainable food and farming.