BAR HARBOR - College of the Atlantic’s Sustainable Food Systems conference is offering a feast for the mind, mouth and eyes. The conference, Food Connections: Reconnecting Hands, Mouth & Mind through Food Systems Education, begins Friday, April 20 with a local-foods reception in the college’s Blum Gallery, to celebrate an associated Maine farming photography exhibit, continuing with talks by John Piotti of Maine Farmland Trust, and the executive director of Food First, Eric Holt-Giménez.

Food Connections treats the entire story of food, moving beyond farm and fork, to packaging, processing, distribution, sales, consumption and waste. The conference, says organizer, Molly Anderson, COA’s Partridge Chair in Food and Sustainable Agricultural Systems, will come to grips with what people need to know to transform food systems and how this can best be learned.

Eric Holt-Giménez’s talk is the first keynote of the weekend focusing on food justice, food sovereignty and how these subjects are treated within our schools and colleges. After a Saturday morning welcome by COA President Darron Collins, MacArthur Fellow Gary Nabhan, author and research scientist at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center, will give a talk titled Redesigning Local Food Systems for Land Health, Human Health and Community Economic Health.