Alli received her J.D. with high honors from Drake University Law School with a certificate in Food and Agricultural Law in May 2011. She graduated summa cum laude from California Lutheran University in 2006 with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Pre-Naturopathic Medicine. After graduating from CLU, Alli moved to Mexico City for a year to work with migrants and refugees at a non-profit, Sin Fronteras. While there, Alli conducted an informal study about the food security among the migrants and refugees with the hopes of increasing funding for food from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. Upon returning from Mexico, Alli worked at Trader Joe's and with the S'Cool Food Initiative, a non-profit working to get healthy lunches into the public schools in Santa Barbara County. In January 2011, Alli won the University of Oregon Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation's writing competition with a paper titled, "And on that Farm There Was an Intern, E-I-E-I-O: Labor Issues in Training a New Generation of Farmers." In the fall of 2010, Alli presented her research about farm internships and labor law at the American Agricultural Law Association's annual conference in Omaha, Nebraska. While in law school, Alli was actively involved with the Drake Agricultural Law Association, serving as vice-president her second year and president her last year of school, and served as Treasurer of the Health Law Association. She served as Junior Staff on the Drake Law Review from 2009-2010. Alli is currently pursuing her LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Arkansas. She was chosen as the 2011-2012 recipient of the Marler Clark Graduate Assistantship, a partnership that will allow her to research and write for Food Safety News.
Dear Reader: Where did your last meal come from?Given our globalized food system, this is a difficult question to answer. The question of food origin breaks down into several parts. Do we care where it originated? Or, do we care where it was processed? Does where the food comes from impact its quality? Does a food's origin impact its safety?...
The subsidy discussion in the United States most often focuses on the impact of subsidizing certain crops, such as corn, wheat and soybeans, through the direct and counter-cyclical payments program to the exclusion of fruits and vegetables and therefore to the detriment of our national health (see, for example, The Fat of the Land: Do Agricultural Subsidies Foster Poor Health?)....
In February 2012, a group of industry and environmental groups joined together to form the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB). According to its website, the GRSB is a global, multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to advance the sustainable production of beef by addressing issues such as soil, water quality, energy use, animal welfare and nutrition.The partners in the GRSB include...
A coalition of 14 public health organizations is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to require that food labels provide full information on added sugars. The coalition explained in a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg that more consumers are trying to make better, informed choices about the foods they eat and that FDA has the ability to provide consumers...
Last year, Mark Stambler, co-founder of the Los Angeles Bread Bakers (LABB) and an avid artisanal baker, ran into some trouble with the Los Angeles Department of Environmental Health for selling his homemade bread at local shops. After that experience, Stambler reports he "made a commitment to work with the department to see if there was a legitimate way for...
The local food ordinance movement that began in a handful of small towns in Maine has found its way to California. On Jan. 24, 2012, farmer Pattie Chelseth introduced a "Local Food and Community Self-Governance" ordinance to the Board of Supervisors in El Dorado County in the historic Gold Country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.The ordinance, referred to as a "food sovereignty...
The international organic market just got a little bigger. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced Wednesday that the organic certifying programs in the United States and Europe Union are now considered equivalent. The new partnership between the two largest organic producers in the world means that products certified organic under one certification scheme can be sold as organic in the...
A recent initiative within the National Park Service seeks to bring its food offerings in line with its mission of environmental preservation. The Institute at Golden Gate notes while "publicly protected lands provide visitors with a connection to places and their natural environment, history and culture," it is often the case that "the quality and type of food served does...
The movement to shift control of food systems to local governments and local communities, sometimes referred to as "food sovereignty," has gained increased notoriety with the recent lawsuit filed against raw milk producer Dan Brown in Blue Hill, Maine. "Food sovereignty," as a concept and movement, is not new nor is it defined by local food movements such as the...
It's become a tradition -- or at least a habit -- for Food Safety News to host virtual potlucks on holidays as a way to share our favorite recipes and love of food, and also to take a little break from writing about the potential risks in what we eat.Always, but especially at Thanksgiving, we're grateful for the many people...
On November 3, the state of Maine filed a lawsuit against raw milk producer Dan Brown for allegedly selling raw milk without a license and for not labeling the raw milk as unpasteurized. The complaint identifies five separate instances in which an inspector from the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Resources observed Brown selling or offering to sell...
There has been a lot of talk recently about federal farm subsidies, including whether the Super Committee is going to cut them to aid in reducing the federal deficit; whether these subsidies are contributing to growing health problems; and, whether the government is being inconsistent in encouraging us to eat more fruits and vegetables while supporting a $5 billion direct-payment...
"O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - Romeo and JulietOn Sept. 22 the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) hosted four "Food Dialogues" in major agricultural production and policy areas to, in their own words, answer consumers' questions and have an open discussion about American...
Editor's note: We asked Alli Condra, who is pursuing her LL.M. in Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Arkansas, and is the recipient of the Marler Clark Graduate Assistantship, to give us the legal background on import alerts. Here is her summary:The FDA and ImportsThe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for ensuring that imported foods are...
Just a few short months after the U.S.Department of Agriculture unveiled its new food guide MyPlate, nutrition experts at Harvard's School of Public Health and Harvard Health Publications released their own guide, Healthy Eating Plate. While MyPlate shows the relative portions of fruits, vegetables, grains, protein and dairy a person should eat, it says nothing about the quality of those foods....
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