As part of its Patron Saint's Day celebrations on 15 February 2017, KU Leuven will confer an honorary doctorate on sustainable food specialist Louise O. Fresco.
Professor Louise O. Fresco is a unique voice in the academic and social debate on sustainable food supply. She was one of the first to emphasize that our food requires a well-considered and widely supported policy that incorporates the common ground with other major social challenges: under- and overweight, environmental impact, climate change, biodiversity, economic and social developments. Fresco boosts the food debate with international organisations, through columns, on television, and in books for a non-specialist audience. "Food is the source of much confusion today," she states in her most famous book, Hamburgers in Paradise (2012), but also: "We are who we are because of what we eat, and with whom. What it means to be human is concentrated in food and in our understanding of it."
Fresco has been president of the Wageningen UR Executive Board since 2014.
The nominators of this honorary doctorate are Professors Wannes Keulemans and Annemie Geeraerd.
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