Farm Bill Seminar

In Spring 2023, BFI will offer an interdisciplinary graduate seminar on the Farm Bill, called “Untangling the Farm Bill: Shaping the Next Five Years of Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy in the U.S. and Abroad.”

The 2023 Farm Bill reauthorization process is underway and will impact funding for nearly every aspect of agriculture in the U.S. and abroad through trade policy. In this seminar, students will do a deep dive into the 2023 reauthorization process, analyze the history and structure of past farm bills (including all 12 titles), engage in co-learning to understand and analyze “marker” bills generated in the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, and engage with experts, advocates, farmers, and legislators who all have a stake in shaping this bill. This 3-credit seminar will be co-facilitated by Sakeenah Shabazz and Nina F. Ichikawa of the Berkeley Food Institute, with Professor Alastair Iles as the instructor of record. Graduate students from across departments are encouraged to enroll.

ESPM 290 – Course #16512
Tuesdays, 2pm – 4pm, 112 Hilgard Hall

In Spring 2018, BFI offered a seminar that brought experts on the Farm Bill to campus with the goals of understanding the general framework of this important legislation and identifying areas of particular interest for further study. Students critically analyzed the Farm Bill’s history, structure and implementation and contributed to real-time discussions of the bill through mini-projects that focused on critical issues, and built skills in policy analysis, debate, communications, and coalition-building.