BOONE—Environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva will present the talk “Sustainability and the Global Food Crisis” Monday, Oct. 11, at 8 p.m. in Farthing Auditorium at Appalachian State University. Admission is free.

Her talk is part of the University Forum Distinguished Lecture Series’ yearlong focus on environmental preservation, sustainability and the fate of humanity.

Shiva is a world-renowned Indian scientist, environmentalist and ecofeminist. Her work highlights the connection between human rights and protection of the environment. She is the author of “Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis,” “Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply” and “Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development.”

Shiva was named “Hero for the Planet” by TIME magazine and awarded the Save the World Award and Sydney Peace Prize. She founded Navdanya International and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE), which has helped establish community seed banks, trained farmers in seed sovereignty and sustainable agriculture, and established the largest direct marketing fair trade organic network in India.

“When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers’ rights and promote organic farming,” Shiva wrote in her blog. “Navdanya/RFSTE’s journey over the past two decades has taken us into creating markets for farmers and promoting tasty, healthy, high quality food for consumers. We have connected the seed to the kitchen, biodiversity to gastronomy. And now we have joined hands with Slow Food to celebrate the quality and cultural diversity of our food,” she wrote.

Additional information about Shiva and her work is at www.vandanashiva.org/.

The lecture series is sponsored by Goodnight Brothers and the Broyhill Inn and Conference. Additional sponsors are Appalachian’s College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Chancellor, University College, Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series, Joan Askew Vail Distinguished Lectureship Endowment, Morgan Lecture in the Sciences and Morgan Lecture Committee, and University Forum Committee (www.universityforum.appstate.edu).

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