An international food and farming conference will bring several hundred agricultural ministers to Sacramento this month, and many of them plan to visit UC Davis while they are in the area.

The conference, called the Ministerial Conference and Expo on Agricultural Science and Technology, is set for June 23-24 at the downtown Sacramento Convention Center. It is sponsored by the U.S. departments of agriculture and state and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Conference promoters say it is intended to be a showcase of emerging science and environmentally sustainable technology that could reduce hunger and improve nutrition in developing countries.

Agriculture ministers from 180 countries were invited. To date, there are 600 registrants from more than 100 countries. In addition to agriculture ministers, registrants are coming from U.S. and foreign government agencies, international organizations and research institutions, private industry, the U.S. Congress, non-governmental organizations, universities and state-level departments of agriculture.

The conference host is U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, who is a UC Davis alumna. Veneman earned a UC Davis bachelor's degree in political science in 1970 and went on to become California secretary of food and agriculture from 1995 to 1999.

Veneman chose Sacramento as the conference site because, according to the Sacramento Bee, California is a top food producer globally and develops and uses many cutting-edge agricultural technologies. Another selling point was the proximity of the prestigious UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

One of the conference's key speakers will be the director of the University of California Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Teaching Program, Martina Newell-McGloughlin. She will moderate a panel on combating hunger and raising personal incomes.

During and after the conference, a number of ministers are expected to tour agricultural-science and nutritional-science facilities around Northern California. Those scientific site visits are being coordinated by Daniel Sumner, the director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center and a professor in the UC Davis Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

"We hope to demonstrate agricultural science and technology in action," Sumner said. "This is the 'show' part of the show-and-tell."

Also planning to demonstrate for the visiting ministers are a number of anti-globalization activist groups, who have called for "direct action" at the conference.

In one online call for non-violent protests, an activist group writes: "Stop the stampede! Say 'no' to the corporate takeover of our food, environment, and indigenous rights!" In an accompanying recruitment poster, a barefoot, dreadlocked rider reins in four horses labeled " 'free' trade," "biotech," "irradiation" and "pesticides."

Another group's online poster urges activists to "unite ... in this showdown with the world's powerful, dictatorial elite."

The Sacramento Bee reported recently that for months, more than a dozen area law-enforcement agencies have been planning security measures for the conference. The agencies include the FBI; the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Department of Justice; the Immigration and Naturalization Service; the California National Guard; the California Highway Patrol; the state Office of Emergency Services; the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office; and the Sacramento Fire Department.

Because UC Davis has been a target of protest vandalism in the past, Police Chief Calvin Handy said his department will have extra officers available during the week of the conference to ensure that any protests do not interfere with campus visitors or usual campus activities.

For more information on the conference and expo, see http://www.fas.usda. gov/icd/stconf/conf_main.html.