Tomorrow is a big day for public confabulation about feeding a world with 9 billion people in it, with high-profile events in Aspen, Colo., and New York. The ideas on offer are likely to be as different as the people gathered around the tables.

In New York, the folks at Nourishing the Planet (a project of the Worldwatch Institute) are launching an e-book called “Eating Planet 2012 – Nutrition Today: A Challenge for Mankind and for the Planet,” produced with the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition. The book features lavishly illustrated chapters on a range of food-related topics (health, sustainability, justice, etc.) and interviews with leading activists and thinkers, some of them quite far from the mainstream.

Speakers at the launch include Jonathan Bloom, author of “American Wasteland;” Samuel Fromartz, editor-in-chief of the Food & Environment Reporting Network; Ellen Gustafson, founder and executive director of the 30 Project; Stephanie Hanson of the One Acre Fund; Kelly Hauser of the ONE campaign; and Dan Morrison, founder and CEO of Citizen Effect. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 12 noon EDT. No more tickets are available, but you can livestream it here.

At the Aspen Ideas Festival, a very different panel will ask “How Will We Feed Nine Billion of Us?” at 1:15 p.m. MDT. Speakers include Beth Sauerhaft, director of global environmental sustainability in Pepsico’s global health and agriculture division; Dan Glickman, vice president of the Aspen Institute and former U.S. agriculture secretary; Helene D. Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA; Lauren Bush, CEO and co-founder of FEED projects; and former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle.

It will be interesting to compare the two conversations. If you catch either event, why not leave a comment and let us know what you heard?

 
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Jonathan Miller is executive director of Homelands Productions, a journalism cooperative specializing in public radio features and documentaries. As a freelance journalist, he has reported from Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and the U.S. for NPR, BBC, CBC, American Public Media's Marketplace, Monitor Radio, VOA, Radio Netherlands and Radio Deutsche Welle. He also has written for The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, Parents, American Way, The Christian Science Monitor and many other publications. For 13 years, he lived and worked in the Philippines and Peru. 

Jon is currently serving as executive producer of "Food for 9 Billion," a collaborative project of Homelands Productions, the Center for Investigative Reporting, American Public Media's Marketplace, PRI's The World, and PBS NewsHour. He was executive producer of Homelands' award-winning "WORKING" project profiling workers in the global economy (2007-09) and the "Worlds of Difference" series about the responses of traditional societies to rapid cultural change (2002-05).