A public lecture series exploring the links among agriculture, food and community begins Tuesday, Jan. 10, at UC Davis and continues each Tuesday with nationally recognized speakers and local experts through March 14.

Mark Van Horn, director of the UC Davis Student Farm, will open the series with a talk entitled "Agriculture, Food and Community -- the Connections."

"The links among agriculture, food and community have stimulated public debate about where food comes from, the well-being of the farmers and farmworkers who produce it, and access to food," said Van Horn. "We are very happy to have this group of farmers, garden organizers, students, educators and researchers address key issues relevant to food, community and agriculture."

The series will include the Feb. 28 special appearance by internationally known social worker Catherine Sneed, who initiated and continues to run one of the world's most comprehensive prison garden programs at the San Francisco County Jail in San Bruno.

In addition to Sneed's talk on building communities and prison gardens, speakers will address the global context of the U.S. farm bill and the impact of agricultural subsidies on family farmers worldwide, food insecurity among California farmworkers, grassroots efforts by Native American communities, high-school and university student groups' efforts to make their food systems more sustainable, and the importance of community and agriculture in sustaining farmers, farmland and food security.

Rick Roush, interim director of the UC Davis-based statewide Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP), which is co-sponsoring the series, said the discussions would help make the connections among hunger, agriculture and communities.

"University research and education play a key role in assessing and increasing the sustainability of the food and agricultural systems," he said.

Lectures are scheduled for 4:10 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays on the UC Davis campus. All lectures except Sneed's will take place in Room 101 Bowley Science Center. Sneed's Feb. 28 talk will be in Wyatt Pavilion Theatre.

A complete calendar of these winter-quarter lectures is available online at http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/news/0601apr.htm.