Burns will screen part of his new documentary "The DustBowl."
Hampshire College graduate Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and chair of Stoneyfield Farm announced his $1 million donation to the school during the inauguration ceremonies for Jonathan Lash, the sixth college president on the college campus in April.
AMHERST – Hampshire College alumnus Ken Burns plans to return to campus Wednesday to screen parts of his upcoming documentary “The Dustbowl” as part of the daylong program “The Sustainable Hampshire: Food and Farm for the Future.”
The program is part of the Healthy Food Transition, which is supported by a $1 million grant from Hampshire alumnus Gary Hirshberg, chairman and cofounder of Stonyfield Farm, producer of organic yogurt.
Campus officials are hoping people from the community will come to be part of a conversation about the future of food. A number of area farmers will either be selling their produce in a farmer’s market, which opens the day at 10 a.m., or presenting on panels.
The farmer’s market will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Red Barn.
Ken Burns
Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash said they are inviting the community to campus because “We’re in the process of change that’s happening here that’s really exciting. We can learn a lot and gain a lot from this community,” he said. The Pioneer Valley is one of the centers of innovative organic farming, he said.
“Many people are doing creative things on sustainability and we want to connect to that.” He said there are very large-scale issues “in terms of global climate change and how we are going to feed nine billion people without destroying the planet.”
He said Hampshire students will be part of that future and need to understand how to live sustainability and address these problems.
At Hampshire, they are also rethinking how they use the college farm and are “inviting experts from around the region to talk to about what you could do.”
At 2 p.m. Lash, along with Hampshire’s sustainability initiative director Beth Hooker, and alumnus Howard Wein of Howard Wein Hospitality, will speak about what the college is doing to implement the Healthy Food Transition.
The forum will include sustainability and food experts including Andy Kendall, executive director of the Boston-based Henry P. Kendall Foundation; Philip Korman, executive director of the Deerfield-based Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture ; Michael Iceland, communications and brand manager of the Lincoln- based The Food Project; Dave Jackson, founding farmer of the Whately-based Enterprise Farm; Anne Obelnicki, director of sustainable food systems at Sterling College and Oona Coy another Hampshire alum and co-owner of the Northampton-based Town Farm.
Burns will screen excerpts from his film at 4 p.m. According to the PBS website, which will air the four-hour documentary in November, the film “chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the "Great Plow-Up," followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation.”
Three area climate change and history professors including University of Massachusetts professor Raymond S. Bradley, director of the Climate System Research Center, and Hampshire College professors Steven Roof and Amy Jordan will speak after the screening.
Lash said he found it eerie that Burns just completed his film on the Dustbowl especially in light of the summer’s drought in the Midwest. He thinks the screening and panel will be a fascinating end to the day.