Agriculture at the Metropolitan Edge: New Ruralism and Other Strategies for Sustainable Development

Public Symposium, University of California, Berkeley

April 5-6, 2007

Registration is now closed. However, tickets can still be bought for the Thursday reception at:

BROWN PAPER TICKETS

Directions to the Symposium

Recognizing the importance of agriculture to the culture, health, and sustainability of metropolitan regions, the University of California Berkeley this year launched Agriculture at the Metropolitan Edge (AME), a program within the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies.

AME explores issues at the interface of rural and urbanizing areas with the aim of understanding the values, economies, and policies impacting these most vulnerable of landscapes.

With a population of 35 million, projected to be 50 million in 2030, California is a dynamic example of the historic and impending impacts of growth on a region's land and people. But the phenomenon is global. Its characteristics and consequences are universal and include: displaced rural residents, non-agricultural uses of productive farmland, increased traffic and pollution, diminished ecological and cultural uniqueness, loss of wildlife, and a fraying of people's connection to the sources of their food and water, and the natural world.

In recent years the New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and Green Building movements have dramatically reshaped how communities are conceived, sited, and constructed. At the same time the Sustainable Agriculture and Local Food movements have made organic foods mainstream and farmers markets a basic town center amenity. With the imprimatur of UC Berkeley and AME, "New Ruralism" is emerging as a key new strategy for bridging Smart Growth and Sustainable Agriculture.

This spring, AME will bring together more than one hundred international policymakers, scholars, farmers, planners, and activists for a symposium, Agriculture at the Metropolitan Edge: New Ruralism and Other Strategies for Sustainable Development. The purpose of the symposium is to create alliances, devise strategies and policies, and set a research agenda to address sustainable metropolitan development using a paradigm that includes food and farmland.

Our goal is to focus attention on

  • the importance of agricultural lands within the regional metropolitan framework
  • environmental and other benefits of ecological agriculture to healthy communities
  • socio-economic issues at the urban edge
  • the interdependence of urban and rural land and communities

In addition to identifying the urgent questions we need to work on, the symposium will provide a forum for presenting successful models for land-use planning and policies that can nourish the economic, environmental, and cultural vitality of cities and metropolitan regions worldwide.

The Symposium is sponsored by the Center for Global Metropolitan Studies and the Agriculture at the Metropolitan Edge program. Additional support and partners include: the Farrand Endowment of the Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning Department; the American Farmland Trust; and the Roots of Change Fund. Registration information will be available soon; visit http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/agmetroedge for updates. For further information, contact Sibella Kraus at AME, 510-642-5233 (sibellakraus@berkeley.edu).