June 14, 2024 | Dr. Nicole Nunoo and Michael Carter Jr.
Description:
Healthy and nutritious food has a pivotal impact on health, therefore, understanding the connection between soil, plant health, and human health and exploring ways to improve food quality and equitable access, is crucial in discussions about climate and health equity. In this webinar, Dr. Nicole Nunoo, a Postdoctoral Associate and transdisciplinary social scientist from the University of Georgia, will present research on creating sustainable regional and national food systems through grassroots participation and solutions like prescription programs. Michael Carter Jr., a fifth-generation farmer from Carter Farms in Virginia, will share his perspective on the interconnectedness of soil health, plant health, and human health. He will also discuss regenerative farming from an African cultural viewpoint and the role of medical professionals in this space.
Speaker Bios:
Dr. Nicole Nunoo is a Postdoctoral Associate and a trans-interdisciplinary social scientist whose integrated work focuses on building sustainable regional and national food systems through grassroots participation. Her current research utilizes collective agency theory, which provides suggestive research directions for understanding regional and national agri-food networks as well as sustainable food systems, particularly among grassroots organizations. As a food systems scholar, her interest centers on frameworks such as collective agency from a multi-sector coalition-building perspective, as well as critical pedagogy for sustainable food futures. She comes from Ghana and enjoys designing lights, reading, and cooking.
Michael Carter Jr. is an 11th-generation farmer in the United States and is the 5th generation to farm on Carter Farms, his family’s century farm in Orange County, Virginia where he gives workshops on how to grow and market ethnic vegetables. In addition, he runs Africulture, a non-profit dedicated to educating and expounding upon the principles, practices, plants, and people of African descent that have contributed to agriculture. He sits on the board of directors of the Montpelier Descendants Committee, Orange County African American Historical Society, Virginia Food Systems Council, American Climate Partners and Virginia Agrarian Trust, respectively. He serves as a fellow for the Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation. Michael was recognized as a 2020 Audubon Naturalist Society Taking Nature Black Regional Environmental Champion, the 2020 VSU Small Farm Outreach Agent of the year and Future Harvest Casa Farmer of the Foodshed for 2021. He acquired an agricultural economics degree from North Carolina A&T State University and has worked in Ghana, Kenya and Israel as an agronomist and organic agricultural consultant. He presently consults with numerous governments, organizations, institutions, and individuals throughout the region and nation on food access, food security/insecurity, market outreach, social and economic parity/equity/evaluation programs, racial understanding, immersion, history, and cultural training, among other areas. As a cliometrician, curriculum developer, and program coordinator for his educational, cultural, and vocational platforms, Hen Asem (Our Story) and Africulture, he also teaches and expounds on the contributions of Africans and African Americans to agriculture worldwide and trains students, educators, and professionals in African cultural understanding, racial literacy, empathy, and implicit bias recognition. He teaches his course Africulture, at the University of Virginia as a Practitioner in Real Life’ in the school of Environmental Thought and Practice major. He happily assists his sons in running their respective businesses, Carter Brothers and Sunnyside Entertainment, when not coaching soccer or mentoring young people in his community.