Panel – Food and water: Are we secure?
Panel participants:
Moderator: John Jacob, PhD, Texas Sea Grant
Bruce McCarl, PhD, Regents Professor and Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University
Bob Randall, PhD, former Executive Director, Urban Harvest
Dan Hardin, PhD, Director, Water Resources Planning & Information Division, Texas Water Development Board
Jim Holway, PhD, Joint Venture Program Director, Sonoran Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
John Jacob
John Jacob is Associate Professor and Coastal Community Development Specialist with the Texas Sea Grant College Program at Texas A&M University (TAMU) and holds a joint appointment with TAMU’s Texas AgriLife Research & Extension Service, Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Science. He is also Director of the Texas Coastal Watershed Program. His areas of interest are coastal communities and economies, wetland ecology, hydrology, nonpoint source pollution and abatement, watershed management, watersmart landscaping, soils and water quality.
To learn more about these programs and Jacob’s publications, please visit the websites of the Texas Coastal Watershed Program, Texas Sea Grant, and the Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
Bruce McCarl
Bruce McCarl is Regents Professor and Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His areas of focus are climate change, climate change mitigation, water economics, policy, and mathematical programming. In his research, McCarl has focused on the analysis of policy and quantitative methods for such analysis, including the quantitative analysis of climate change. He shares the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore as a member of the United Nations Inter-Governemental Panel on Climate Change.
For more information on McCarl, including a his papers, visit his Texas A&M website.
Bob Randall
Bob Randall has been a foodshed activist in the Houston region for 22 years. He is the retired founding Executive Director of Urban Harvest, Inc. – the fourth largest community gardening program in North America – and author of the book Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro Houston, and other publications on gardening. Urban Harvest is a community nonprofit that, according to its mission statement, “uses fruit, vegetable and habitat gardens to improve quality of life in the greater Houston area.” The organization brings a wide range of gardening skills, techniques, and advice to schools and the larger community through their classes and events, helps neighborhoods and schools create their own community gardens, provides fresh and locally grown food to Houston’s residents, and encourages responsible land use.
Randall has taught anthropology courses at the university level for 16 years, with a specialization in issues of wise horticulture, food production, ecosystems, and hunger, and has received numerous environmental, humanitarian, and teaching awards.
To learn more about Urban Harvest’s work and Randall’s book, visit the Urban Harvest website.
Dan Hardin
Dan Hardin is Director of the Water Resources Planning & Information (WRPI) division of the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB), and has been with the Board for almost 15 years. His agency’s research and analysis of water use and planning data informs the regional and state water planning and management processes. WRPI disseminates water-related data, provides services necessary to planning and managing the state’s water resources, and acts as a liaison and coordinator for the 16 regional planning groups and the TWDB. The division also oversees water studies conducted in each of the 16 regions, compiles and analyzes data from these studies, and incorporates these data into the state water plan.
To learn more about the Texas Water Development Board and the Water Resources Planning division, please visit the TWDB website and the WRPI webpage.
Jim Holway
Jim Holway is the Joint Venture Program Director at the Sonoran Institute and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He has previously served as Arizona State University’s coordinator for the Arizona Water Institute, as well as assistant director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, where he oversaw regulatory programs and developed water management policy.
To learn more about the Sonoran Institute-Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Joint Venture, please visit the program’s website.
[...] John Jacob, PhD, Texas Sea Grant Karen Walz, FAICP, Program Manager, Vision North Texas Dean Almy, PhD, UT-Austin School of Architecture Peter Bella, Natural Resources Director, Alamo Area Council of Governments [...]