Will Allen, founder and chief executive officer of Milwaukee’s Growing Power Inc., has been invited by former President Bill Clinton and Yale University to speak about sustainable foods.
Clinton invited Allen to participate in a panel discussion titled "The Future of Food," on Friday, Feb. 13, at the University of Texas Austin. Actress Drew Barrymoore also will be featured on the panel, which will speak in front of 1,000 college students and 200 university presidents and chancellors from across the nation.
The conference is part of the Clinton Global Initiative, which is sponsored by the Clinton Foundation. Allen and the others will address issues of food security and food justice in a world threatened by economic and political upheaval, global warming, overpopulation and outmoded food policies.
The moderator for the discussion will be Raj Shah, the director of agricultural development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Other panelists include: Barrymore, who has been named an ambassador against hunger to the U.N. World Food Program; Emma Clipinger, a student at Brown University; Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges; and film director Morgan Spurlock.
Following that discussion, Allen will appear at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., on Monday, Feb. 16, for a special address to the faculty, students and guests of the Yale Sustainable Food Project.
The Yale Sustainable Food Project directs programs that "support exploration and academic inquiry related to food and agriculture," and also manages a sustainable dining program and an organic farm on the Yale campus.
"It’s pretty clear that food, pure and simple, is not being taken for granted anymore,” Allen said. “Conferences like these, sponsored by some of the most important institutions in the world, suggest it has finally sunk in. We need to address hunger as a global threat."
