Grist's Food Fight Series - Food Safety Bill

"In Grist’s Food Fight series, experts, pundits, and an elite cadre of Grist readers don their aprons and hairnets to debate hot-button food issues via a—what else!—virtual roundtable."

Their most recent topic is the food safety legislation pending before Congress. The roundtable participants have debated the following issues surrounding the Food Safety Bill:

• Does the food safety bill give the FDA too much power -- or not enough?
• Will the Tester amendment to S. 510 help small farms and processors, but put more kids at risk? 
• Will the Food Safety Modernization Act harm small farms or producers?
• Will the Food Safety Modernization Act better protect us from contaminated food?
• Do we really have a food-safety crisis?

The Food Fight series panel is made up of 10 experts "from various sides of this complicated yet crucial debate." The panelists are:

• Michael Bulger, a master's candidate in Food Studies at NYU
• Kathleen Chrismer, food-safety advocate
• David E. Gumpert, health and food issues reporter
• Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports
• Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
• Mark Kastel, co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute and director of its Organic Integrity Project
• Russell Libby, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Assocation
• Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food & Water Watch
• Judith McGeary, founder and executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
• Tom Philpott, Grist's senior food and agriculture writer
• Bonnie Azab Powell, Grist food editor and Food Fight moderator

To read the panelists' full bios, click here.

A recap of the major points made in this Food Fight series will be posted once the Food Safety Bill passes (or fails). But don't wait for the recap, the debates of the above issues are really worth reading in full.