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The Integration of Science and Faith will be Essential to Dealing with America’s Current Food & Farming Crisis

A dialogue with Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Jesus for Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System.

Due to a “perfect storm” of multiple stresses—including climate change and the pandemic—more farmers, ranchers and fishers in the U.S. are in debt and at risk of losing their livelihoods than ever before. The response to this unprecedented farm and food crisis—especially in the the face of worsening heat waves, drought and water-scarcity—cannot not be merely technological nor political. If there has ever been a time when the creation-focused values of faith communities must come together with compassionate, ecological and social sciences to solve a major challenge, it is now. And yet, such dialogue between science and faith on the future of our food security and environmental stewardship has sadly faltered the last few years, and needs renewed.

Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan is an Ecumenical Franciscan Brother and a local leader in the Wild Church Network.  But he is also an accomplished field scientist, whose work has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Crop Science, Ecological Applications, Ecological Restoration and Conservation Biology.  His work has also been featured in interviews or op-eds in the New York Times, National Public Radio’s Saturday Edition, Science Friday, Food and Faith podcast, National Catholic Reporter, Christian Century, and Acres USA. His collaborative work across faiths, cultures and disciplines has been honored with a MacArthur Genius Fellowship, a Pew Fellowship on Conservation and Environment, and an Utne Reader Award for Those Making the Earth A  Better Place To Live.  He has received lifetime achievement awards from the Chefs Collaborative, Society for Conservation Biology, the Quivira Coalition, Society for Economic Botany, Society of Ethnobiology, and Crop Science Society of America.

To contact Dr. Nabhan/Brother Coyote, OFM for an interview, an op-ed, or a dialogue/lecture in your community or organization, contact him here, at this site.

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