Watch the whole talk on A&S TV.
By Rachel Komich
On Sept. 14, Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan kicked off the year for Food Studies with his talk, New Crops from Wild Fruits: Re-Diversifying Cropping Systems. Dr. Nabhan, a MacArthur Fellow and W.K. Kellogg Chair in the Southwest Borderlands and Water Security at the University of Arizona, spoke to a full house at Baker Center Theater.
Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan
Nabhan’s talk stressed how important the “stories” of the foods that we eat are and how native foods help build a more resilient local economy with distinctive identities and markets. The previous day, Nabhan was a keynote speaker at the Paw Paw Festival at Lake Snowden, and he praised that and other local entities such as Community Food Initiatives and Shagbark Seed and Mill, which are all focused on bringing back diversity in our supply of native foods.
In this equally inspiring and practical talk, Nabhan listed six phases of bringing a forgotten fruit into recovery: rescuing plants from decline, re-adapting the plants to agro-habitats, reintroducing plants into markets as cultural icon and feature food at festivals, finding niches in systems, cuisines, and markets, reviving support systems (cideries, mills, breweries, etc.), and rebuilding infrastructures to support the re-imagined economy.
To deepen the local economy, Nabhan advised focusing on native fruits, fish, game, and herbs and supporting the producers. Celebrating the history and the uniqueness behind the native plant, Nabhan said, will help build on shared values and collective goals and objectives. So will things like rebuilding infrastructures of local processes by financing new start-ups and giving independently owned businesses incentives to keep jobs. No diversity, Nabhan warns, will result in loss of foods, GMO salmon and trees, a subsidized and skewed economy, and ultimately malnutrition.
A great start to the Fall 2015-16 Food For Thought Speaker Series. Please join us for Dr. George Weckman speaking on Oct. 22 at 5:30 pm. in the Friends of the Library Room, and for Kip Rondy of Green Edge Gardens on Nov. 19, 5:30 pm.
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