LEWISTON — Mark B. Lapping, executive director of the Edmund S. Muskie School for Public Service at the University of Southern Maine, will be the featured speaker at the Great Falls Forum lecture series Thursday.

The program begins at noon Thursday, Jan. 19, in Callahan Hall at the Lewiston Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. Lapping’s talk is titled “Understanding Maine’s Food System: Life at the End of the Pipeline.”

Increasingly, Maine people are asking important questions about their food system: Is our food safe and healthy? Why does the cost of food seem to increase every time I go shopping? Is organic better than other forms of food? Do we need as much regulation in the food system as we currently have?”

For the last several years, Lapping and the staff at the Muskie School have been researching these and similar questions. What they have discovered has at times been quite startling. While historically Maine has been an important source of the nation’s foodstuffs, whether from the land or the sea, today Maine imports more of its food than any other state in the contiguous 48. This makes Maine incredibly vulnerable to any disruption in the nation’s food system.

Maine is also vulnerable in another way: in the midst of apparent plenty and variety the state has emerged as one of the hungriest states in the country. Today better than one out of every five Maine children live in a food-insecure home and the numbers of people dependent on food stamps and related programs such as food banks continue to grow.

Lapping will present not only the results of the Muskie School’s research, but also the solutions that have been identified to address these issues.

Admission is free to all forum events and no reservations are required. Attendees are invited to bring brown-bag lunches, or to take advantage of the Forum’s partnership with Guthries cafe and request one of the eatery’s custom-made, gourmet sandwiches or salads to be delivered to the library in advance of the talk. Orders may be placed by calling Guthries at 376-3344. The menu is available at www.guthriesplace.com. Coffee, tea and bottled water will be available at the library.

The Great Falls Forum is jointly co-sponsored by Bates College, Lewiston Public Library and the Sun Journal. More information is available by contacting the Lewiston Public Library at 513-3135 or www.LPLonline.org.

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