By Tabassum Ali

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UK students interested in agriculture and sustainability can learn how to combine the two in the latest Lafayette Seminar.

The series, titled “Revealing the Power of Food,” begins Sept. 24 in the Lyric Theater on Third Street with a talk by DC Central Kitchen’s Robert Egger.

Egger will inspire and challenge listeners as he speaks about how food can create a community, said Phil Harling, director of the Gaines Center for the Humanities, the event’s chief sponsor.

“Lafayette Seminar is free and open to the public,” Harling said. “We’re hoping to see students turn out for all three events.”

Lafayette Seminar this year will be held on three different days: Sept. 24th, Oct. 1st and Oct. 9th.

Two panel discussions, “Whose Farm to Whose Table? The challenge of enhancing access to local food” and “Thinking Big: Local Food and Large Institutions,” will be held on the October dates at 5:30 p.m. in the Lyric Theater and UK’s W. T. Young Library, respectively.

Karyn Moskowitz, director of New Roots and the Fresh Stop Project in Louisville, is a panelist on the “Whose Farm” discussion board. She has previously traveled to New York, California, Toronto and Italy to talk about food justice.

“I think that food justice and health equity are the most important issues of our day— not only here in Kentucky, where we have the potential to actually feed ourselves with food grown in state, but in fact all over the country,” Moskowitz said.

Jim Embry, founder and director of Lexington’s Sustainable Communities Network, and another one of four panelists on the “Whose Farm” discussion panel, said his panel will look toward creating a sustainable future for food with an emphasis on food access and affordability.

“We will draw any sense of national and international development back to the local level,” Embry said. “There is still a lot of injustice for food access.”

Harling said anyone interested in the health and economic benefits of bringing more locally produced food to more local consumers is likely to find the discussions interesting.

Lisa Broome, the student affairs director for the Gaines Center, said she hoped that as many as 100 students and community members attend each event.

“Students should come to this event as they have a connection with food,” Embry said. “They are the next generation and can help design a project for sustainable food.”