Visiting Scientist to Discuss Food, Environment and Public Health

Ricardo Salvador, senior scientist and director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, will give a lecture at Utah State University Friday, Sept. 20, titled “Democracy Interrupted: Constructing a food utopia on top of crumbling foundations.”

Salvador works with citizens, scientists, economists and politicians to transition our current food system into one that uses sustainable practices to produce healthy foods. His work is driven by the belief that the current food production system disproportionately benefits some large agribusiness firms and contributes to rises in preventable diseases like hypertension and type 2 diabetes.

He is a former associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, where he taught the first course in sustainable agriculture at a land grant university. He is also a former Extension specialist at Texas A&M University and program officer for Food, Health and Wellbeing at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where he collaborated on programs to address connections between food, health, environment, economic development, sovereignty and social justice.

Salvador’s lecture at USU begins at 3 p.m. in room 101 of the Agricultural Sciences Building and is open to the public. His visit is sponsored, in part, by Western Regional Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education.

Writer: Lynnette Harris, 435-797-2189, Lynnette.Harris@usu.edu

Contact: David Hole, 435-797-3455, David.Hole@usu.edu