Ecology, Biotechnology, and Sustainable Agriculture

Paul Thompson is the Kellogg Chair in Agriculture, Food, and Community at Michigan State University. He joined the Philosophy Department at Michigan State in 2003, with partial appointments in the Agricultural Economics and Resource Development Departments. Previously he held faculty positions at Purdue and Texas A&M. He is the author of The Spirit of the Soil: Agriculture and Environmental Ethics and editor of The Ethics of Intensification: Agricultural Development and Cultural Change. Fred Kirschenmann is Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State and president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York. He also oversees management of his family's 2,600-acre certified organic farm in south central North Dakota. His 2010 collection of essays is Cultivating an Ecological Conscience: Essays from a Farmer Philosopher. Part of the Live Green! Sustainability Series.