Paul Hanley

Bio

Paul Hanley is a Canadian writer based in Saskatchewan, recognized for his work on the environment and sustainable development. He was the environment columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix from 1989 to 2016 and has published several books and roughly 1,500 articles on agriculture, ecology, and sustainability. His 2014 book 'Eleven' -- examining how a population of eleven billion can be fed sustainably -- won the 2015 University of Saskatchewan President’s Award for Non-fiction and was shortlisted for Saskatchewan Book Awards. He later wrote 'Man of the Trees,' a biography of conservationist Richard St. Barbe Baker. His expertise in sustainable agriculture and development underpins his session topic on feeding the world while serving the common good.

The big questions

The kind of questions this session opens up.

1. Have you ever wondered how a planet that grows enough food for everyone still can’t manage to feed everyone?
2. Is the real problem how much we can produce, or how much we have decided we are entitled to consume?
3. Can we feed eleven billion people without using up the soil -- and the people who tend it -- in the process?
4. What do we owe a generation we will never meet, who will eat from the land we are farming today?