Hold on tight - Eureka moment happening!!

My chance email to Roma Britnell (Australian 2011 Nuffield Scholar) to find her blog details resulted in an introduction to Charlie Arnot of the Centre for Food Integrity in the USA. Pretty tenuous in the first instance, but I'm so glad it worked that way. (The spirit of Nuffield in action!)

Charlie was inspirational. There's no other way to describe how I felt. The 2 hour meeting (very generous anyway) went on for 2 hrs 30 mins, late on a Friday afternoon, showing Charlie's generosity and dedication to the subject. During that time we mulled over a wide variety of works relating to food chain trust, agricultural image, key players, interactions between them, leadership, innovation, overcoming obstacles to win - it's all beginning to sound like our Gettysburg visit last year. Thankfully Charlie wasn't dressed as Abraham Lincoln!!

It appears at this point that Charlie, Roma and I seem to be heading in similar directions on the subject of demonstrating the value of agriculture and improving the trust/public perception of agriculture/food chain.

I'm indebted to Charlie for his time and effort in seeing me, and to Roma for being open and sharing her contact with me.

Having had such a positive experience (and it's Friday evening and I'm lucky enough to be in the centre of Kansas City) I'm going for a beer and half a cow (a light snack now I'm used to USA food portions)!