Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise -- and hope -- that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to produce lots of calories cheaply, and they did. They became the most productive humans on earth. A single farmer in Iowa could feed 150 of his neighbors. That is a true modern miracle.

"American farmers are incredibly inventive, innovative, and accomplished. They can do whatever we ask them, we just need to give them a new set of requirements."

Kevin Kelly - Kevin Kelly is a member of the the Long Now Foundation board of directors. Kevin Kelly is the editor at large (formerly editor in chief) at Wired Magazine. He was involved in the 1993 launch of this influential magazine. In 1994 and 1997, during Kelly's tenure, Wired won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. From 1984-1990, he was publisher and editor of the "Whole Earth Review," a journal of unorthodox technical news. He is a founding board member of the WELL, a Sausalito-based teleconference system that is viewed as a model of online community. He edited "Signal," a Whole Earth Catalog of personal communication tools. He launched Cyberthon, the first round-the-clock virtual reality jamboree. Kelly's book on how machines are becoming biological is called Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and Economics. In 1998, he also published New Rules for the New Economy. He is also a member of the Global Business Network, a distributed think tank specializing in future scenarios for global-minded businesses. He has written for Time, the New York Times, the Economist, GQ, and Harpers. His latest book, Asia Grace, is currently available from Taschen.

Michael Pollan - Michael Pollan is the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, a New York Times bestseller. His previous books include The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (2001); A Place of My Own (1997); and Second Nature (1991). A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is the recipient of numerous journalistic awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003 and the Reuters-I.U.C.N. 2000 Global Award for Environmental Journalism. Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harper’s Magazine and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing 2004, Best American Essays 2003, and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac.