Will We Have a Livable Future?

Chuck Zimmerman

The Agriculture and Public Policy GatewayWhat do you think about this new website project by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health? Their Center for a Livable Future has launched the site to “enable research on the critical links between agriculture and public health.” Do you think they understand production agriculture and have farmer’s best interests at heart? Is this needed? Who defines a livable future?

The Agriculture & Public Health Gateway is a unique information resource for journalists, public health and agricultural professionals, advocacy and community organizations, policy makers and educators. Gateway can be accessed at http://aphg.jhsph.edu.

“Public health and agriculture are intricately linked, and there is a growing interest in the complicated connections between them,” said Robert Lawrence, MD, director of the Center for a Livable Future. “The Gateway places important and reliable information about these connections in one central location and makes it easy to access. We hope all who are concerned about a sustainable food system and about improving the health of the public will benefit from this resource.”
Gateway’s purpose:

• Inform those who want to learn about the connections between public health and agriculture
• Strengthen the capacity of communities, organizations and the media to access reliable information on these topics
• Connect communities, organizations and individuals to facilitate knowledge sharing and open a collaborative dialogue
Visitors can browse Gateway by subject to find reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, relevant organizations and other research tools. The site’s database search provides access to millions of resources related to agriculture and public health and is simultaneously linked to databases from the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), the National Agricultural Library (AGRICOLA), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (National Agricultural Safety Database) and the World Resources Institute (EarthTrends).

Other Gateway resources include links to glossaries, listservs and newsletters, online photos and images, and event listings related to agriculture and public health.

Farm Policy, Internet, University