The Future of American Agriculture

Speaker: 
Kathleen Merrigan
 
20 Oct 2009
 
8:00 PM
 
Sun Room, Memorial Union

Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, is the former director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts University, where she was on faculty in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. As a staffer on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, she helped shape the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, which created national standards for organic foods and a federal program to accredit them. She has also served as administrator of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, which oversees the agency's organic program. Merrigan holds a doctorate in Public Policy and Environmental Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She will speak about her initiatives in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she is second in command. Part of the National Affairs Series.