Michael Pollan — author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, is on the small screen again TONIGHT! This time, he’s moderating a panel discussion of the 2007 farm bill, now being debated in Congress.
The title: Food Fight: A Teach-in On the 2007 Farm Bill. Watch the live webcast here (rm), starting in just a couple minutes (7 - 9 pm Pacific time).
The panelists: Ken Cook, director of the Environmental Working Group; Ann Cooper, Director of Nutrition Services for the Berkeley school system; Dan Imhoff, author of Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill; Carlos Marentes, Director of Sin Fronteras Organizing Project; and George Naylor, Iowa corn farmer and president of the National Family Farms Coalition.
The Farm Bill’s a piece of legislation that often goes under the radar, but has HUGE implications from fair trade with developing countries, to tax dollars spent on farm subsidies, to the welfare of farmers — both big scale industrial and local organic — across the country, to the food you’ll be putting into your own mouth in the years to come.
Bush’ll sign the next Farm Bill (revised every 5 years) later this year — so this is the time to find out more about it and get involved. According to Slow Food LA:
Typically, the Farm Bill is written with virtually no input from anyone beyond a handful of farm-state legislators. Not so this year. A coalition of public health, environmental, family farmer, community food security, development and immigration groups is weighing in.
Few things could do more to reform the American food system–and by doing so improve the condition of America’s environment and public health, as well as the prosperity of farmers throughout the developing world–than if the rest of us were to start paying attention to the Farm Bill. Here’s your chance to get up to speed.
If you read this too late, the webcast’ll be archived on the UC Berkeley Webcasts site in a few days.
[Read about what happened on the webcast!]
March 24th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I work for the Community Food Security Coalition, one of the major players in organizing around the Farm Bill. If you want more info about how it all works, come by our office in Venice (or DC if you are closer to that one), or visit our website: http://www.foodsecurity.org