News Release Distributed 01/18/11

A half-day conference on rural poverty will feature two nationally recognized scholars on Feb. 3 in Baton Rouge.

Bruce Weber from Oregon State University and Mark Partridge from The Ohio State University will serve as keynote speakers for the event, according to Matt Fannin with the LSU AgCenter Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness.

LSU AgCenter and LSU A&M faculty will present concurrent sessions following the keynote addresses. Speakers will include Fannin, Kelley Pace from the LSU Department of Finance and Tim Slack from the LSU Department of Sociology among others.

The conference serves to both promote and highlight poverty research within LSU, Louisiana and the Deep South, Fannin said.

The conference will be held from 8 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. in the Woods Auditorium in the Energy, Coast and Environment Building on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge.

Rick Bogren