U of G President Takes the Reins of a Program to Address Food Security Issues

Jun 23, 2014

The University of Guelph’s outgoing president Alastair Summerlee was named the executive director of a new fellowship program, the Kirchner Food Fellowship, which seeks to combat global food security issues.

Summerlee is set to complete his 11-year tenure as U of G president this summer, and will take on the newly created role with the Kirchner Food Fellowship, while staying on as a faculty member at Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVC).

According to a U of G press release, the Kirchner Food Fellowships is intended to draw students from universities across North America, and equipped them with training, industry mentors and financial capital to help tackle food security. The one-of-a-kind program provides monetary resources to agri-business to develop technologies that are deemed to be environmentally and economically sustainable.

The founding investor and principal mentor of the program, Bed Kirchner, says the curriculum will provide students with the opportunity to advance food security issues in a meaningful way, referring to the program’s design, combining academic training and real-life experience and working with agri-businesses to develop sustainability tools.

“This new initiative is exciting. By linking academic training, business acumen and exposure to real-life investment, students will have the opportunities to fund global food security issues in a meaningful way,” Summerlee said in a release.

Details on the curriculum and application will be announced soon. The fellowship program is a partnership with three groups – the Kirchner Group, the Hunger Solutions Institute and Universities Fighting World Hunger.

“I am keen to be involved in this innovative effort, and look forward to working with the fellows chosen for the program,” he said.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.