A project of the Brooklyn Food Coalition, the Brooklyn Food Conference is on May 2nd at John Jay High School and PS 321. It's an all day, free event that will feature a multitude of cool activities and speakers.
- See a roundtable of NYC chefs, moderated by WNYC’s Leonard Lopate, with Dan Barber, Peter Hoffman, Bill Telepan, and Brooklyn’s own David Shea of Applewood and John Tucker of Rosewater.
- Hear LaDonna Redmond on what people in Chicago have done to change their food system, learn about worldwide food rebellions from author Raj Patel, and find out how climate change can affect the world’s food supply from activist Anna Lappé, and discuss milk health risks and benefits with author Nina Planck–plus workshops with many other dedicated activists and professionals.
- Meet your local farmers!
- Learn how to start your own victory garden in Brooklyn, compost, and start a food coop.
- Join your children at a kids’ food fair with cooking demonstrations and other fun activities.
- Workshops by and for teens plus Teen Iron Chef!
Here are the stated goals of the conference, which hopes to:
- Bring Brooklyn together to demand and participate in creating a vital, healthy and just food system available to everyone.
- Create a Brooklyn legislative food democracy agenda and constituent base.
- Organize neighborhood meetings of elected officials—congressional
reps, state legislators, city council members—to press for a food
democracy agenda. - Influence public policy by educating elected officials and showing them the depth and diversity of public interest.
- Create a broad-based Brooklyn Food Coalition.
- Create a useful, cross-referenced directory of attendees.
- Help partner organizations grow their constituency by offering attendees avenues for action.