Del Rey farmer Nikiko Masumoto to speak on White House panel

Del Rey farmer Nikiko Masumoto will appear on a White House panel next week speaking about the future of food.

The panel is part of the South By South Lawn festival that brings together experts from across the country to explore ideas involving food, technology and the environment.

Heading a panel on protecting the planet will be actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio, President Barack Obama and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

Masumoto will be on a panel discussing how to sustainably feed a growing world population. She will be joined by several speakers, including Danielle Gould, founder of Food+Tech Connect, a center for food innovation; Will Allen, founder and chief executive officer of Growing Power, a not-for-profit center for urban agriculture training; and Caleb Harper, principal investigator and director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab.

Masumoto, along with her father, David “Mas” Masumoto, operates an 80-acre organic farm in the east Fresno County community of Del Rey.

This story was originally published September 27, 2016 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Del Rey farmer Nikiko Masumoto to speak on White House panel."