How can urban environments be agricultural centers?
How can food be grown sustainably in a city?
How are urban farms addressing issues of equity and access in the Bay Area?

Join us for a delicious and locally sourced meal cooked by Farming Hopeand stimulating conversation with our panel of experts: Kelly Carlisle, Founder and Executive Director, Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project; Sibella Kraus, Founder and President, Sustainable Agriculture Education – SAGE; and Kevin Madrigal, Culinary Director & Co-Founder, Farming Hope. Moderated by Max Elder, researcher at the Institute for the Future‘s Food Futures Lab.

ON THE MENU
Roasted Butternut Squash Tostada with Mole, Creamy Zucchini Soup Shooters, Crispy Cilantro Chicken Thigh, Flan de Chocolate for dessert, and a glass of wine.

Purchase Tickets: https://bit.ly/2KPS1Ci
Password to Purchase Ticket: urbanag

ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Kelly Carlisle, founder and executive director, Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project, is a veteran of the United States Navy and has been the recipient of many awards, including the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. She is an avid gardener and is an Alameda County Master Gardener Trainee. She is an active member of the Farmer Veteran Coalition. Ms. Carlisle was selected as one of 200 U.S. delegates to Slow Food International’s Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto in 2012 and 2014, and was the December 2011 Bon Appetit Good Food Fellow. She has worked with and mentored pre-teen and teenage youth since the age of 14. A native of East Oakland, Ms. Carlisle is committed to creating positive change in her childhood city. Her work was honored at the White House under President Barack Obama.

Sibella Kraus, founder and president, Sustainable Agriculture Education – SAGE, works at the intersection of sustainable agriculture, local food, economic development and resilient metro-regions. SAGE is an entrepreneurial nonprofit that develops models and frameworks for integrating regional food systems into regional resilience planning and implementation. She leads SAGE initiatives including the Bay Area Food Economy, an analysis produced for the Association of Bay Area Governments’ Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy; and San Jose Food Works, an assessment and call to action that presents the City’s food system as a driver for advancing the City’s innovation economy, placemaking, public health and sustainability. Sibella also developed SAGE’s acclaimed Agricultural Parks model implemented on two public land sites in the Bay Area, and its New Ruralism framework, a place-based and systems-based approach for facilitating urban-rural connectivity.

Kevin Madrigal, culinary director and co-founder, Farming Hope, the soup kitchen turned on its head. They hire folks that would normally wait in line for services to actually grow food, cook it, and serve paying customers at pop-up dinners. Kevin studied food-based health interventions, sustainable agriculture, and human-centered design at Stanford. He is passionate about improving access to healthier foods for everyone, especially under-resourced communities in America. Farming Hope’s California-Mexican style cuisine has evolved from his experience in catering kitchens, farm-to-table restaurants, and his grandmother’s home cooking. In his spare time, he teaches hip-hop dance classes and tests new recipes with traditional Mexican ingredients.

ABOUT FOOD IS A CONVERSATION
Organized by KitchenTown, Future Food Institute and the Institute for the Future‘s Food Futures Lab, this event is part of a series of public discussions about innovation in the food system featuring entrepreneurs, industry experts, policy advocates, and you. Learn something new, contribute to the conversation, and be a part of a growing community interested in the future of food.