Frances Moore Lappé to Kick Off Permaculture Conference with Public Lecture at UMass Amherst

AMHERST, Mass. – Internationally acclaimed author and food policy reformer Frances Moore Lappé, best known for her 1970s book, “Diet for a Small Planet,” will be the kickoff speaker on Wednesday, June 20 at 6 p.m. for the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s “Permaculture Your Campus” conference.

Her talk, which is open to the public, will be on the 11th floor of the Campus Center. It is free for conference attendees, with a suggested donation of $5-20 at the door for others. Donations will go towards scholarships for the conference. 

Lappé will discuss her new book, “EcoMind,” and how to “change the way we think to create the world we want,” in her words. The most recent of her 18 books, “EcoMind” recently won a silver medal at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. In it, she draws on the latest research from disciplines ranging from anthropology to neuroscience and her own field experience, to argue that the biggest challenge to human survival is not our fossil fuel dependence, melting glaciers or other calamities. Rather, she says it’s our faulty way of thinking about these environmental crises that robs us of power.

Lappé dismantles seven common “thought traps” that fail to give a true impression of what we now know about nature, including our own, and offers contrasting “thought leaps” that suggest our hidden power. The author is the co-founder of three organizations, including Food First: The Institute for Food and Development Policy and, more recently, the Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education seeking to bring democracy to life, which she leads with her daughter Anna Lappé.

More than 50 participants from across the country and one from Honduras are expected to take part in the two-day conference on June 21-22 at UMass Amherst, according to conference coordinator Rachel Dutton. They will learn how to develop a permaculture initiative for their own campus and will leave with a tailored action plan. Staff of the award-winning UMass Permaculture Initiative will discuss costs and benefits of permaculture gardening and share the value it has created for the campus and local community such as positive environmental change, community engagement and new economic opportunities. 

To register or learn more see: www.umasspermacultureconference.com/index.html

More about Frances Moore Lappé: www.SmallPlanet.org