Gary Paul Nabhan at Prairie Lights

MacArthur award-winning “father of the local food movement” Gary Paul Nabhan will read from and talk about Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities. In this book, Nabhan shares inspiring stories about food and land restoration projects that bring communities together across the political divide. Nabhan is personally engaged as an orchard-keeper, wild foods forager, and pollinator habitat restorationist working from his small farm in Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. He has helped forge "the radical center" for collaborative conservation among farmers, ranchers, indigenous peoples and environmentalists in the West. Nabhan is the author of books including Coming Home to Eat, Cumin Camels & Caravans, Desert Smells Like Rain, and the recent Mesquite: An Arboreal Love Affair.

He is a research scientist and the W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Arizona Southwest Center, where he works to build a more just, nutritious, sustainable, and climate-resilient foodshed spanning the U.S./Mexico border.