Center for Social Innovation

Published: July 08, 2012 Download  21 minutes, 9.6mb, recorded 2012-02-02

Food, water, and energy: connection technologies can and must unite these three sectors for the sake of our planet's future. Twenty-five percent of global land is now degraded, but these territories could become productive once again with the proper resources. Over the last 30 years alone we have increased our ability to produce food by 50% while using less land and less labor. What other developments are in our future, and how can these systems address our energy needs? In this audio lecture, Dr. Ann Bartuska of the U.S. Department of Agriculture shares her insight on the necessary steps to sustainably feed the nine billion people that will be living on our planet by 2050. Dr. Bartuska spoke as part of a panel called "Framing the Challenges: How Can Connection Technologies Support Sustainable Development?" at the USRio+2.0 Conference at Stanford University.

Resources

• USDA Homepage
• USRio+2.0 Conference
• Podcast: Social Enterprise in Food Supply Chains

Dr. Ann Bartuska is Deputy Under Secretary for USDA's Research, Education, and Economics (REE) mission area. She comes to REE from the USDA Forest Service, where she was Deputy Chief for Research & Development. She recently served as Acting USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment from January - October of 2009, and was the Executive Director of the Invasive Species Initiative in the Nature Conservancy. She is an ecosystem ecologist with degrees from Wilkes College (B.S.), Ohio University (M.S.) and West Virginia University (Ph.D.).

Dr. Bartuska currently co-chairs the Ecological Systems subcommittee of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the White House National Science and Technology Council. She is also co-chair of the Sustainability Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences and active in the Ecological Society of America. She has served on the Board of the Council of Science Society Presidents and is a member of AAAS and the Society of American Foresters.