Today on Repast, Diana talks with Resnick Center Executive Director Michael T. Roberts about his new publication, “International and national regulatory strategies to counter food fraud,” which he wrote in conjunction with authors from the law department of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  They discuss the long history of food fraud, the intractable nature of the problem, the roots of the problem in the complexities of supply chains, and some possible solutions.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find Professor Roberts’s publication here.  

His other work can be found here.

Information about the Food and Drug Law Institute's previous Food Advertising, Labeling, and Litigation Conference is here.

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Professor Timothy Lytton, Professor of Law at Georgia State University about his new article, “Using Insurance to Regulate Food Safety: Field Notes From the Produce Sector,” published in the New Mexico Law Review.  They discuss the management of risk in food safety, gaps in food safety regulation, and the potential of the insurance industry to partially fill these gaps.  Professor Lytton also talks about his process, and what is next in his scholarship.  

Timothy D. Lytton is Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Development, Distinguished University Professor, and Professor of Law at Georgia State University College of Law.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find Professor Lytton’s new article here.  

His other work can be found here.

This month on Repast, Michael and Diana talk with a very special guest, Dr. Sara Bleich, the Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity for the Food and Nutrition Service, USDA.   Dr. Bleich is leading the department’s work to counter food and nutrition insecurity in the United States.  In this episode, Dr. Bleich discusses the USDA’s Actions on Nutrition Security, the difference between food security and nutrition security, health equity, structural racism, the upcoming historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, and much more.

Dr. Sara Bleich is on leave from her tenured position as a Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  She is a well-regarded public health policy expert specializing in food and nutrition policy and the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. Her research centers on food insecurity, as well as racial injustice within the social safety net. Dr. Bleich holds a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University and a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Columbia University.

In the first year of the Biden administration, Dr. Bleich served as Senior Advisor for COVID-19 in the Office of the Secretary. In January 2022, she transitioned to her new role as the first Director of Nutrition Security and Health Equity at the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA.  She will elaborate more on this role today.  From 2015-2016, she served as a White House Fellow in the Obama Administration, where she worked in USDA as a Senior Policy Advisor for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and with the First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative. 

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

For more on the USDA’s Actions on Nutrition Security, see here.

See here for Secretary Vilsack’s address on the USDA’s Actions on Nutrition Security.

See here for the USDA’s new blog series on nutrition security.

Look here for information about the upcoming White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana chat with Michael L. Baum and Pedram Esfandiary from the national law firm, Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, about their current work in the ongoing toxic baby food litigation. In these cases, Baum and Esfandiary represent families whose children developed autism and ADHD after consuming baby foods contaminated with high levels of toxic heavy metals.  In addition to discussing this litigation, Winters, Roberts, Baum, and Esfandiary talk about the role of litigation in filling regulatory gaps, the role of science in the law and their work in particular, and how students can get involved in these issues.

Michael L. Baum is the Senior Managing Shareholder and President of the national law firm Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, based in Los Angeles. He is proud to be a UCLA undergraduate and law school alum.  With 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical litigation and biological products’ litigation, Michael concentrates on litigating plaintiff product liability consumer products, pharmaceutical cases and consumer class actions.

Pedram Esfandiary is an attorney at Baum Hedlund in Los Angeles and works on many of the firm’s mass tort cases. By the age of 26, Pedram had worked on the first three historic Roundup cancer Monsanto trials with Michael and UCLA alum Brent Wisner, resulting in verdicts of $2.42 billion.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find information about Baum Hedlund’s toxic baby food litigation, including links to important documents, here.

The 2021 Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy Report on tainted baby food can be found here.

Information about the Kiss the Ground documentary can be found here. 

In this month on Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Neil Hamilton, Professor Emeritus and Former Director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University.  Professor Hamilton has been a professor at Drake since 1983.  Among other things, he is a Member of the Board of Directors for the Iowa National Heritage Foundation and a past president of the American Agricultural Law Association.  He was the Chair of the Iowa Food Policy Council (2000-2007), the Chair of the Agriculture Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, and the Vice chair of the USDA Small Farms Advisory Committee (1997-2000).  Hamilton is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Land Remains—A Midwestern Perspective on Our Past and Future, which he discusses here.

Neil Hamilton is Professor Emeritus at Drake University Law School.

 Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can buy The Land Remains—A Midwestern Perspective on Our Past and Future here.

In this episode of Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Susan Schneider, the William H. Enfield Professor of Law and the Director of the LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law.  Professor Schneider is a pioneer in the academic study of food and agricultural law, and among many other publications, is the author of Food, Farming, and Sustainability, Readings in Agricultural Law.  Here she talks about the past, present, and future of the discipline. 

Susan Schneider is Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

You can find more information about the LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law here.

Food, Farming, and Sustainability, Readings in Agricultural Law is linked here.

Today on Repast, Michael and Diana talk with Evan Graham Arango, the owner, founder and farmer at Ojai Roots Farm in Ojai, CA. Evan graduated UCLA Law in 2020 specializing in environmental law and taking courses in food and agricultural law and policy. He is a Research Affiliate with the Resnick Center and is on the advisory board of UCLA Law's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Evan, Michael, and Diana talk about Ojai Roots, making a difference at the local level, regenerative agriculture, policy obstacles and visions, and much more.  

Evan Graham Arango is the owner and founder of, and the farmer at Ojai Roots Farm.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

This month on Repast, Diana Winters and Beth Kent, a fellow in environmental law and policy at the Emmett Institute at UCLA Law, talk with Jamiah Hargins, founder of Crop Swap LA and the Asante Microfarm, about healthy food access, the need to keep things local, and why Crop Swap LA is actually a lifestyle company.  Jamiah, Diana, and Beth discuss the intricacies of growing and distributing food in L.A., L.A. food policy, and exciting Crop Swap LA and microfarm developments.  Jamiah also points to meaningful volunteer opportunities for students and others looking to make a difference in healthy food access, community development, and food policy.

Jamiah Hargins is the founder of Crop Swap LA.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Beth Kent is an Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA Law.

Crop Swap LA's website is here.

You can find a L.A. Times article about Jamiah here, and one in Food and Wine here.

Today on Repast, Michael and Diana interview Professor Jennifer Chacón, Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, and previously a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, about immigration enforcement in meatpacking and poultry processing plants.  They discuss her chapter, “Spectacular Immigration Enforcement in Hidden Spaces,” from the forthcoming book, Carceral Logics: Connections Between Human Incarceration and Animal Confinement, edited by Lori Gruen and Justin Marceau.  

Among other things, they talk about the history of working conditions in the meatpacking industry, the concept of deportability and its relationship with racism, the hidden nature of meat and poultry production and the exploitation of workers, and some Biden administration policy proposals to address several of these issues.

Jennifer Chacón is Professor of Law at UC Berkeley.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

More of Professor Chacón’s publications are here. 

And here are some additional sources, selected by Professor Chacón, on topics discussed today: 

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, DEPORTED: IMMIGRANT POLICING, DISPOSABLE LABOR, AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM (2015)

 Justin Marceau, BEYOND CAGES: ANIMAL PROTECTION AND CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT (Cambridge 2019)

Angela Streusse, SCRATCHING OUT A LIVING: LATINOS, RACE, AND WORK IN THE DEEP SOUTH (2016)

Nicolas de Genova, Migrant "Illegality" and Deportability in Everyday Life, 31 Annual Review of Anthopology (2002) 

Kristy Nabhan-Warren, MEATPACKING AMERICA: HOW MIGRATION, WORK, AND FAITH UNITE AND DIVIDE THE HEARTLAND (forthcoming 2022)

In this episode of Repast, Michael sits down with Joshua Hofheimer, a partner at Sidley, whose practice focuses on representing clients in the agribusiness and food and information technology sectors, among other areas.  Michael and Josh discuss the tremendous amount of innovation that has taken place in agribusiness over the last few years, driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs and talent.  They discuss specific areas of innovation, including GE foods and CRISPR technology, and chat about the future of agribusiness.

Joshua Hofheimer is a partner at Sidley. 

 Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.