Law School Food Justice Conference Draws Crowds

A conference focusing on interdisciplinary examination of justice in the food system drew hundreds to Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall this weekend for “Just Food?,” a joint project between the Harvard Food law Society and Harvard’s Food Literacy Project.

Featuring guest speakers, workshops, panels, movie screenings, and exhibits, the conference solicited over 500 registrations.

Several notable guests spoke at the conference, including Law School Dean Martha L. Minow, who delivered a welcome address. Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was originally scheduled to deliver a keynote talk on Sunday but was unable to attend, according to conference organizers.

In lieu of Salvador’s talk, organizers arranged for Olivier De Schutter, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, to speak via video. Schutter praised the conference as being “extremely timely and important” and spoke of what he perceives as a need for the United States to adopt a national food policy to reorganize the current food system.

Margiana R. Petersen-Rockney, the Food Literacy Project coordinator, and Alexandra M. Jordan, a second-year Law School student and president of the Harvard Food Law Society, organized the two-day conference under the Food Better campaign, an initiative launched by the Deans’ Food System Challenge “to raise awareness about food systems issues,” according to its website.

Petersen-Rockney and Jordan said they began planning the conference last fall semester with the hope of using Harvard’s notoriety and prestige to illuminate the current problems facing the food system in the U.S. and start a productive conversation about these issues.

Rather than having one definition of “food justice” control the conversation, Petersen-Rockney said she hopes that the conference will instead “empower[...]attendees to define food justice for themselves and engage their own communities and their own fields in contributing to a more just food system.”

Lynsey A. Miller, a sales director and part owner of the Equal Exchange Co-op, which exhibited its products at the conference, enjoyed being able to connect with others who share a “common ground around food, but have all started from really different perspectives or corners of the food system.”

Marcus K. Granderson ’18, a member of the FLP who assisted at the conference, highlighted the broad scope of issues surrounding food systems.

“I feel like in our society, we don’t think about food as being inclusive of so many issues humans face, whether it be human rights, if you consider gender, race, or sexuality…All those issues are within the food system, and this conference really highlights those issues and brings to light what we need to do as a society to fix those problems,” he said.