david kirby

"We are heading toward a two-tiered food system in this country," notes David Kirby, author of Animal Factory. The food safety bill that just passed Congress puts some safety standards back into the U.S. food system, but does it do anything to change the ability of poor folks to buy healthy food? Raj Patel points out that when wages are kept low and work is devalued, it doesn't matter how cheap food is; people won't be able to afford it. Raj and David join us for a special extended conversation about the state of food policy in the U.S.: safety, subsidies, wages and working conditions. Does bipartisan acknowledgement that there is a problem bode well for our food system, and what's going on with local activism toward sustainable food production?

The FDA is holding public hearings this week on genetically modified "AquAdvantage" salmon, destined, if they make the cut, for your dinner plate. Meanwhile, congressional investigators are looking into an outbreak of salmonella that sickened over 1500 people. And nobody's talking about the superbug, MRSA, being found in pork. What's wrong with our food system? "We need better forms of production," notes David Kirby, author of Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment. He notes that the regulatory framework for the food system is broken, and the corporate agribusinesses aren't likely to police themselves. Who's guarding what we eat? Last fall, we spoke to a group of young hip-hop activists who were part of a groundbreaking trip to Palestine with Native American youth. The Narcicyst was one of those activists, and his new video is all about breaking borders. Created as a collaborative effort by 10 photographers from all over the world, the video shows the faces of people: DJs, MCs, poets, architects, teachers, doctors, parents and children. The song is "Hamdulillah" by The Narcicyst with Shadia Mansour, and the video was directed by Ridwan Adhami. The right wing is angry and mobilized this election season, with the Tea Party crowd energized after winning primaries and the left demoralized over the Obama administration's failings. Young people were a huge part of the movement that put Obama in the White House, but will they come out and vote again this year? And what will they be voting for? Billy Wimsatt, author of Please Don't Bomb the Suburbs and director of Vote Again 2010, and Rosa Clemente, former Green Party vice-presidential candidate, join Laura in studio to talk organizing, action, and motivation, within and without the Democratic Party. Finally, talking about the drug war over the weekend, Mark Danner noted the "thinning out" of politics toward the extremes in times of crisis. But why does it only seem like one extreme ever gets media play here in the U.S.?

Big business has been meddling with the Gulf Coast long before BP. Industrial runoffs from factory farms have invaded the Gulf and fostering the growth of algae which produces lifeless or "dead" zones of the water. While these problems have been overlooked, they have come into our water and food supply, most commonly in the form of pesticides. David Kirby, expert on factory farming and author of "Animal Factory" joins us in the studio to tell us how Americans' longing for cheap food and cheap gas leads to expensive consequences. Currently, there are six million public housing units for nine million people in need of public housing. Right to the City presents "We Call These Projects Homes", an interview of Anne Washington from Community Voices about the need to empower public housing communities to express this need to the government. Ultimately, the government and the public will need to quench the negativity surrounding the public housing community to guarantee a greater right to housing. Are housing rights the new civil rights? Even though critics claim that housing shortages are crosses to bear, one can't solve foreclosures without first investigating problems behind public housing and homelessness. Protests and community empowerment actions such as "live-ins" akin to the "sit-ins" of the Civil Rights illustrate the growing need of Housing as not a government controlled entity, but an essential human right. Max Rameau, author of "Take Back the Land Movement" and Vince Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights join us in the studio to discuss the current actions working to secure housing as a human right. Laura's F Word covered the the results of the primary in Pennsylvnia, and how the AFL-CIO's grassroots support contributed.

Last week, we spoke to David Kirby and Rick Dove about the harmful effects of factory farming. This week, we look at a documentary in progress about a small family farm.
From Grass to Cheese is the story of the Nolan family and their Laurel Valley Creamery, founded in 2005 as a way to make cheese sustainably and renew the connection between people and their food. The film, which you can help support on Kickstarter, will show the human side of farming.