Summer Session Visitors Bring New Perspectives on Food and Agricultural Policy
Last week during the VLGS Summer Session, CAFS welcomed two distinguished visitors: Policy expert Jonathan Coppess joined us as Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Distinguished Scholar, and investigative journalist Mark Schapiro joined us as a Food and Agricultural Law and Policy Media Fellow. Each came to campus, met with faculty, students, and staff, and shared back some of their work with the VLGS community through the Environmental Law Center’s Hot Topics in Environmental Law lecture series.
Jonathan Coppess »
Jonathan Coppess leads the Gardner Agriculture Policy Program and the Policy Design Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He has taught and written extensively on federal policy related to agriculture and natural resources, including his latest book Between Soil and Society: Legislative History and Political Development of Farm Bill Conservation Policy. His Hot Topics lecture discussed the status of the farm bill and some of the current challenges of federal food policymaking. More »
Mark Schapiro »
Mark Schapiro is an award-winning journalist whose work covers the science and policy of agriculture, biodiversity, climate change, and other environmental topics. He teaches science writing and food and agriculture reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. His latest book, Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply, investigates who controls the food crops we need to resist the stresses caused by climate change. His Hot Topics lecture followed the trail of Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov to Earth’s “centers of biodiversity” and highlighted the importance of these places as natural repositories of vital genetic resources. More »