Food Fight:
The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill

Should be available at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events.php in the next day or so.

Michael Pollan will moderate a panel discussion of
the 2007 farm bill, now being debated in Congress, with guests Ken Cook,
director, Environmental Working Group; Ann Cooper, Director of Nutrition
Services for the Berkeley school system; Dan Imhoff, the 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.



Later this year, the President will sign an
obscure piece of legislation that will determine what happens on a couple of
hundred million acres of private land in America, what sort of food Americans
eat (and how much it costs) and, directly as a result, the health of our
population. That piece of legislation is the Farm Bill, which, every five
years, determines the rules by which the American food system operates, rules
that end up affecting not only all of us who eat in the U.S., but people all
over the developing world.



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.



In addition to the panel, a wide variety of
food-related groups will be on hand to pass out pamphlets, answer questions,
and provide ways for citizens to take direct action on this year’s Farm Bill.



When: March
21, 2007, from 7:00pm-9:00pm

Where:
Wheeler Auditorium,
University of California Berkeley

Cost
(for in-person attendance): $5.00
via the Zellerbach Ticket Office (510.642.9988); U Cal Berkeley students free
with ID.



For those who
will not be in Berkeley on the 21st--and
that's most of Slow Food Los Angeles' members and friends--the event will be webcast live and archived within a
few days of the event at:?http://webcast.berkeley.edu/events.php.??There
is no charge to access the webcast other than your own internet connection
costs.



This event is being sponsored by the Knight
Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.