Digital Commons Network^™

Eating Is Not Political Action, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Graham Downey, D. Lee Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Food and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.

To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.

American mythologies of food and environment …

Eating For The Environment: The Potential Of Dietary Guidelines To Achieve Better Human And Environmental Health Outcomes, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

Agriculture and food production contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Shifting human dietary patterns has the potential to reduce such environmental harms while also promoting human health. Government policy, in the form of the United States Dietary Guidelines (USDG), recommends what Americans should eat and could play an important role in shifting the food system to one that is more sustainable. However, the USDG are an overlooked aspect of U.S. food policy. While many countries have moved to synthesize environmental goals with dietary guidance, the United States has taken the opposite approach. In 2015, despite recommendations from …

Farming And Eating, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay argues that the “us versus them” rhetoric that dominates food and agriculture policy today drives a wedge between farmers and food consumers. Together, farmers and food consumers could form a powerful coalition to challenge the true obstacle to sustainable and equitable food production: concentration of market and political power elsewhere along the food chain.

The Gmo/Ge Debate, Joanna K. Sax

Faculty Scholarship

The scientific community and the public sphere are having different debates about the application of genetic engineering to improve our food supply. Many that are deeply steeped in the science view genetically engineered food as a more precise way to accomplish what we have been doing for centuries, which is genetically modifying our food supply. Some members of the public view genetically engineered food with skepticism especially as it relates to health, safety and the environment. A disconnect between the scientific consensus and public perception is not a new phenomenon. This Article attempts to bridge this gap by explaining what …