A Seminar Presented by:

Leslie Hossfeld

Professor and Head of Department of Sociology, Mississippi State University and Associate Director of Local Food Systems, Food Insecurity/Food Access and Economic Development for the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Mississippi State University

 Building Local Food Infrastructure to address
Food Insecurity, Food Access, and Health Disparities

Creating local food systems that tackle food insecurity, food access and health disparities are a challenging and daunting undertaking. Often food systems development neglects aspects of food insecurity and health disparities.  Dr. Hossfeld will discuss building on a successful, comprehensive systems-approach model based in North Carolina and replicating this in Mississippi, a high poverty, high food insecure state.

Friday, November 04, 2016
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Discovery I, Room 140

Dr. Leslie Hossfeld, is a Rural Sociologist who has written, received and managed over $5 million in grants to support local food systems and food insecurity research and programmatic activities, through USDA, Southern SARE, Southern SAWG, and major foundations.  She has received numerous awards related to rural economic development, and community engagement, and has extensive experience examining rural poverty and economic restructuring. She has devoted the past 13 years to local food systems development in North Carolina examining food access and food insecurity and linkages to local food economy and economic development for high need communities. She has made two presentations to the United States Congress and one to the North Carolina Legislature on rural economic decline. She is co-founder and President of the Southeastern North Carolina Food Systems program Feast Down East (www.feastdowneast.org), an economic development project with the goals of poverty reduction, engagement, and empowerment of limited-resource farmers and consumers.  She is a member of the Southeastern Consortium for Research in Food Security, and past president of the Southern Sociological Society, and appointed to the USDA Rural Growth and Opportunity Strikeforce. She joined Mississippi State University as Head of the Department of Sociology in July 2015 and founded and directs the Mississippi Food Insecurity Project at Mississippi State University. She is currently working with state partners to develop local food systems infrastructure in Mississippi that links food systems research, economic development, and food insecurity and food access agendas.  Dr. Hossfeld works closely with doctoral candidates and new and emerging scholars to build local food systems and food insecurity scholarship and expertise at Mississippi State University. 

 

This is a free seminar and all faculty, staff, students, and guests are welcome to attend.
Contact Ranina Outing at nutrinfo@mailbox.sc.edu  or 803-777-6363