Sustainably Growing Food in the Face of Climate Change and Water Scarcity
Saturday, March 5 | 1:30 PM to 2:45 PM
Over the next half century, climate change will dramatically affect which wild food plants can be integrated into edible landscaping and which horticultural crop varieties reach optimum quality in nearly every foodscape in North America. Our plant selection options in each microclimate will be radically reworked by declining chill hours, extreme summer temperatures, the changed frequency of tropical storms, and extended droughts. With 2,300 counties declared drought disaster areas in the US within the last two years, it is time that horticulturists, gardeners, and farmers in every part of the country look more critically at the wealth of traditional desert farmers’ and permaculturists’ adaptations to drought, heat, and water scarcity.
About the Speaker
Gary Nabhan is a Franciscan Brother, agroecologist, desert botanist and nature writer with a half century of fieldwork in the Desert Southwest and Mediterranean. He was inspired to move to Arizona when he saw Paolo Soleri’s first national exhibit on architectural design at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 1970. In the winter of 1971, he met Paolo Soleri and hosted him for a lecture at Prescott College. An Arab-American, he has recently been integrating Soleri’s aesthetics with traditional Mozarabic and Arid American design principles to create contemplative gardens of desert plants and perennial polycultures of arid-adapted food plants for a new agriculture. Author or Editor of more than 30 books, he has been honored with fellowships from the McArthur Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, Lannan Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
USA