what statistics reveal about Alabama agriculture, what state producers must do to compete in today's global marketplace and agriculture's environmental responsibilities.
“Our overall goal is to look at the different phenomena fueling the metamorphosis in Alabama's rural areas and in agriculture in the state and to explore ways to sustain and protect the state's family farms, rural landscapes, natural resources and ways of life,” conference organizer Claude Boyd says.
Boyd is a CoAg fisheries professor and AU's Butler/Cunningham Eminent Scholar of Agriculture and the Environment. Featured speakers will include national farm policy expert Barry Flinchbaugh of Kansas State University, who will share his perspectives on agriculture, economics and politics; Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund and Rebecca Goldburg of the Environmental Defense Fund, voicing their views on agriculture's environmental responsibilities; and USDA senior economist Carol Goodloe and federal ag statistician Linda Hutton, who will crunch the numbers from the 2002 Census of Agriculture.
The conference registration fee of $95 ($50 for students) includes two breakfasts, two lunches and refreshments at all breaks.
For more information on the conference, call Boyd or June Burns at 334-844-4078; email Boyd at boydce1@auburn.edu, or visit the Butler/Cunningham Web site at www.ag.auburn.edu/BC and click on 2004 conference. Participants can register online or at the conference.
The Butler/Cunningham conference series is funded through an endowment to AU's College of Agriculture by the late Eugene Butler, a pioneer editor of Progressive Farmer magazine, and the late Emory Cunningham, founder of Southern Living and a long-time president of Southern Progress Corp., which published Progressive Farmer and Southern Living . The conference was established to address issues related to agriculture and forestry, the environment and rural life in Alabama.
The first conference, held in 2002 in Birmingham, examined the status of Alabama agriculture. The 2003 conference in Montgomery focused on trends and opportunities for rural land use.
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