Today, a growing movement for sustainable agriculture and locally grown food has emerged in Northeast Ohio, garnering increasing support and acceptance. Not only does this movement address many environmental and social concerns, it also offers innovative and economically viable opportunities for growers, consumers, policymakers, home gardeners, and many others in the food system. As this quiet revolution takes shape across the United States, activists in Northeast Ohio are on the leading edge and have the ability to transform the region.

Featured speakers include eco-farmer and humorist Jerry Brunetti, urban food activist and community gardener Will Bullock, health and dietary advocate Mladen Golubic, MD, PhD, and a panel of local experts.

A panel of local experts includes Jeff McIntosh on creating edible home landscapes; Matt Kleinhenz, OARDC, on growing and buying local implications on food systems; Kari Moore, Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy, on local food access and initiatives; Parker Bosley, former chef/owner of Parker's New American Bistro, on linking growers to markets and restaurants; Lynn Gregor, community garden expert and the Garden's Green Corps on local community gardening; and Bob Jones, Culinary Vegetable Institute, on nutrition and agriculture in school curricula.

The food chain has changed dramatically, especially since the end of World War II. Where small farms and backyard gardens once provided the food on the family table, today, new technologies, mechanization, increased chemical use, specialization, and government policies have allowed fewer farmers with reduced labor demands to produce the majority of the food we consume in the United States.

Although these changes have had many positive effects and reduced many risks in farming, there have also been significant costs. Prominent among these are topsoil depletion, groundwater contamination, the decline of family farms, and increasing costs of production.

The 2007 Sustainability Symposium offers Northeast Ohioans an ideal opportunity to gain insight into what is happening in the sustainable food movement nationally as well as in their own region, and how to join the quiet sustainable food revolution, take action, and begin to affect changes in their health as well as in how we look at food.

Featured Speakers

Mladen Golubić, M.D., Ph.D. is a Resident Doctor in the Department of Medicine at Huron Hospital. He earned his degrees in Croatia, and conducted postdoctoral research in the field of immunogenetics at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. From 1990 until 2006, he has worked at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation as a Project Scientist on research projects aimed at elucidating how dietary factors modulate the development and progression of cancer. He has been involved in many educational programs related to health promotion by dietary and mind-body approaches.

    Wil Bullock, at age 24, already has more than ten years of community service under his belt.  As Academic Year Program Coordinator for Boston’s Food Project, Wil currently teaches young people about sustainable agriculture and food systems. Once scared of public speaking, Wil is now a powerful preacher of a new gospel about food and health.  Some of the topics he speaks on include: parents as role models for healthy eating and access to fresh, healthy food in low income communities.  He is one of 13 Kellogg Foundation Food in Society Policy Fellows, which allows his advocacy to reach wider audiences.

Presented by Cleveland Botanical Garden and The Nature Center at Shaker Lakes

Co-Presenters: Crown Point Ecology Center, Culinary Vegetable Institute, Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy, North Union Farmers Market, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, The Farmland Center

Member:$85 Non-Member:$95 info [at] cbgarden [dot] org  216.721.1600 Click here to register

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