 |
|
 |
This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 James E. McWilliams
McWilliams' Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly is sure to create controversy. Once a "locavore," McWilliams has dramatically shifted away from the "Eat Local" and "Eat Organic" camps, but his change of heart isn't a frivolous, economically slanted sponsorship of agribusiness. McWilliams cares deeply about achieving "a sustainable global diet" for a population, now and especially in the future, to "feed itself, and at the same time preserve its natural resources for future generations." Considering the rate of population growth – the world will house over nine billion people by the year 2050 – the concept of "just" food, that produced ethically and judiciously, provokes much argument. McWilliams compares food to religion and says that extremes – agribusiness versus the local farmer – are easier for people to support, to champion and argue. Extensive research and interviews with renowned scientists, educators, and economists have led the author to reconsider the negative attitude held towards food miles, the use of pesticides, farm-raised fish, and genetically modified crops. Just Food is the search for a “pragmatic center” within a complex problem of feeding ourselves, all of us, taking care of our planet, and enabling our children to do the same. McWilliams was a fellow in the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University; he is currently an associate professor at Texas State University. He has written three previous books and contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, and the Texas Observer. He lives in Austin.
On the web: Click Here
|
|
