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Food and environmental sustainability focus of ASA-CSSA-SSSA Annual Meetings

Presidents of Iceland and Bangladesh, Nobel Prize Winner to address climate change and world hunger; soil and crop experts to look at impacts of Hurricane Katrina

What was the impact of Hurricane Katrina on soil quality and agriculture? How can soil help lessen the impacts of climate change? To what extent can biofuels help make America energy independent? These topics and others of public interest will be discussed at the International Annual Meetings of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) Nov. 4-8, 2007 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. The event marks the 100th anniversary of ASA.

More than 4,000 soil scientists, crop scientists, and agronomists from around the world will meet to discuss food security, biofuels, climate change, sustainable environments, carbon trading, organic agriculture and more. Included will be a special presentation on soil clean-up and agricultural impacts post-Hurricane Katrina. Demonstrations and displays of related scientific and agricultural products will also be available in an exposition Nov. 5-7, 9 am to 6 pm. For more information, including the abstracts online, go to www.acsmeetings.org/meetings_program.

Highlighted Speakers

• Sunday, Nov. 4, 7-8pm: Nobel Peace Prize and Congressional Gold Medal recipient Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, is joined by Rob Horsch, Gates Foundation, to discuss agricultural technologies to fight world hunger.

• Monday, Nov. 5, 8-9am: President of Iceland Olafur Grimsson will comment on climate change and how Iceland can be a laboratory for global solutions. A Q&A will follow at 9 am.

• Monday, Nov. 5, 5:30-6 pm: President of Bangladesh Iajuddin Ahmed will present, “Bangladesh: Problems of Global Warming, Land Inundation and Arsenic Poisoning.” A Q&A will follow at 6 pm.

• Tuesday, Nov. 6, 8-9am: Henry Thompson, director, Cancer Prevention Lab, Colorado State University, will present ways to make food crops healthier in the fight against chronic diseases.

• Wednesday, Nov. 7, 8-9am: Mike Palmer, University of Oklahoma, and Ken Cassman, University of Nebraska, will present contrasting points of view on biofuels.

• Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1:45-3:45 pm and Thursday, Nov. 8, 8-10 am: Charles Groat, University of Texas; William Jenkins, Louisiana State University; and several other speakers will review the impacts of Hurricane Katrina on soil and agriculture in coastal Louisiana.

The ASA (www.agronomy.org), CSSA (www.crops.org) and SSSA (www.soils.org) are educational organizations helping their 11,000+ members advance the disciplines and practices of agronomy, crop and soil sciences by supporting professional growth and science policy initiatives, and by providing quality, research-based publications and a variety of member services.

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