Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power and one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010 urged UW-Madison students to become more involved in research on the environment and sustainable farming Monday.
Growing Power, Inc. is a nonprofit organization based on sustainably farming foods for diverse communities and providing education and hands-on training to children and adults. It has worked to build gardens and harvest foods in Milwaukee, Chicago's Grant Park, Kenya and other local communities.
Allen said students should promote agriculture because food is the most important thing to people across the world, and the industry is interested to hear what students have to say about the topic.
""Things are changing because they're starting to hear from the students,"" he said. ""The students really need to push this effort.""
According to Allen, a student-led farming conference in Wisconsin attracted people from all over the country and was ""impressive and great to see.""
Allen said the nutrition value in food across the world has decreased substantially since the 1950s and the only way to improve it is to improve soil quality.
""To be able to grow healthy food you have to grow healthy soil,"" Allen said.
Allen said students should take an active role in working to improve soil as a way to improve the nutritional content of food worldwide.
Growing Power grows its own foods and creates its own soil. Allen said the company is now focused on a new initiative called Aquaponics, a method of raising fish and plants in the same system to create a symbiotic relationship.
Growing Power has plans to build a $12 million, five-story facility in Milwaukee, which would have 20,000 feet of space to work on improving soil content.
