Desert Botanical Garden is pleased to host Arizona State University’s President’s Community Enrichment Programs.
This program is complimentary to attend, please call 480-727-7208 to register by phone, or log on to www.asufoundation.org/pcep. A complete list of the 2008-2009 President’s Community Enrichment Programs may also be viewed at
www.asufoundation.org/pcep
The United States has one of the most sophisticated food and fiber production and distribution systems in the world. It is a capital-intensive system that maximizes advances in technology to deliver food at the lowest cost to the world’s consumers. New challenges, however, are causing some to reconsider our food production, distribution and consumption practices. Included among these challenges are growing urban pressures, rising energy costs, climate change, environmental degradation, health concerns and global economic development.
Arizona remains an important food-production and distribution center with its own set of unique challenges related to population growth, land, labor, water and border security. While food is central to our lives for both physical and social reasons, these food challenges are not being widely considered, nor do we have much collective knowledge about them. Indeed, recent research shows that the average consumer does not know much about the food on their plate and does not think about it much further than that plate. The average consumers still hold sentimental notions about the agrarian lifestyle and our rural heritage.
Paul Patterson is dean and a professor in the Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness and has been with Arizona State University since 1995. Prior to assuming the position of dean, he had extensive experience in faculty governance as president of the ASU Polytechnic Academic Senate. He earned his doctorate in agricultural economics at Purdue University, where he was a USDA International Marketing Fellow. His research focuses on food marketing, industrial organization, international trade, and food and agricultural policy.
