Sustainable agro-ecology is topic of lecture at SUNY New Paltz
NEW PALTZ — The School of Science and Engineering at The State University of New York at New Paltz will continue its colloquium series with a lecture, titled “Sustainable Agro-ecology: Feeding the World with Minimal Environmental Impact,” at 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, in the Coykendall Science Building Auditorium.
The speaker, Dr. Valerie T. Eviner of the Institute for Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, will discuss how the new field of agro-ecology is providing tools to naturally manage farms to enhance and sustain fertility, soil stability, water availability and to decrease pests.
According to Eviner, “There are many environmental problems associated with conventional agricultural practices, including erosion, habitat loss, biodiversity loss and pollution of water by sediments, nutrients and pesticides.” Eviner will show how agro-ecologists have documented the negative impacts of conventional agriculture, how they have developed natural tools to avoid these negative impacts, and how our social and economic systems must shift in order to support a transition to sustainable agriculture.
“Proponents of conventional agriculture assert that environmental degradation is an inevitable outcome of feeding an increasing human population,” said Eviner. “However, there have been substantial advances in the field of sustainable agriculture that call this assertion into question.”
Dr. Eviner is an assistant scientist at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies who received her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology at the University of California (Berkeley). She is widely published on issues of ecology and participates on a number of boards including the Brook Farm Project, an organic farm in New Paltz which serves as a sustainable agriculture research and education center.
The colloquia are free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture. For more information or directions, call (845) 257-3728 or visit the School of Science and Engineering on the Web at www.newpaltz.edu/sse.