The New Politics of Food: Michael Pollan Sounds Off
A more substantive Stir It Up-date coming tomorrow! For now, here’s a really interesting article by Michael Pollan in the New York Review of Books.
The article contains a lot of information to chew on for students planning to build a diverse coalition of organizations in the fight to democratize campus food service. Here’s a piece of the article that describes the diverse interests that hold a stake in effecting change in the food system:
Among the many threads of advocacy that can be lumped together under [the food movement] we can include school lunch reform; the campaign for animal rights and welfare; the campaign against genetically modified crops; the rise of organic and locally produced food; efforts to combat obesity and type 2 diabetes; “food sovereignty” (the principle that nations should be allowed to decide their agricultural policies rather than submit to free trade regimes); farm bill reform; food safety regulation; farmland preservation; student organizing around food issues on campus; efforts to promote urban agriculture and ensure that communities have access to healthy food; initiatives to create gardens and cooking classes in schools; farm worker rights; nutrition labeling; feedlot pollution; and the various efforts to regulate food ingredients and marketing, especially to kids.
Conspicuously absent is any talk of justice for food service workers. But that slight aside, the overall push is in the right direction and the article is really interesting.
Photo by william couch's Flickr Photostream.
