Profs to Speak to House of Commons Committee
February 13, 2012 - In the News
Two University of Guelph professors will speak on Canada’s future in food and agriculture at a House of Commons committee meeting Feb. 15.
Prof. John Cranfield, Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics, and Prof. Evan Fraser, Department of Geography, will speak to the standing committee on agriculture and agri-food in Ottawa. The committee will meet from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
They will discuss “Growing Forward 2”, the new federal strategic framework for agriculture and food. The current framework will expire March 31, 2013. It was created in 2008 as Ottawa’s vision for a profitable and innovative agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products industry.
Cranfield and Fraser will both talk about meeting consumer demands, especially Growing Forward programs intended to improve food safety, promote environmentally responsible agriculture and meet consumers’ health needs.
A U of G professor since 2001, Cranfield studies consumer behaviour and demand analysis among individuals, households and markets, agri-food and biotechnology innovation, and micro-economic theory in agri-food.
Fraser joined U of G in 2010 as the Canada Research Chair in Global Human Security. A co-author of the book Empires of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, he studies food security, land-use change, integrated modelling and farmer behaviour.
