Food as a Social Contract

Oct 10, 2014

Mark McLellan, an internationally-recognized expert on food processing, will present “A Social Contract – Food: Past, Present and Future” at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15. The free public lecture will be held in Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center, room 101.

McLellan will explore recent changes in the social contract with farmers. The original social contract allowed the United States to build the most efficient and effect production of food the world has ever seen, McLellan said.

But now, he said, our social contract with farmers is changing. "Farmers are finding themselves in two worlds — one of very great need with over 800 million men, women and children in the world going to bed hungry tonight, and a more affluent America with obesity in rampant growth," he added. "U.S. farmers today must deal with two worlds — one of great need and one of affluence with epidemic obesity."

“The audience will have a great chance to hear about how technology and food interact in the context of pressing global issues,” says Sarah Purcell ’92, director of Grinnell’s Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, which sponsors the lecture.

McLellan has extensively researched food processing technology and technological applications in food science and is vice president for research and dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Utah State University.

McLellan’s lecture is the latest in the College’s annual World Food Prize Lectures, in which Grinnellians discuss global agricultural issues with top experts visiting Iowa for World Food Prize events.