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Dan Imhoff

Biographical Note

The first decade of the 21st century has been marked by an increasing concern about flaws and dangers in the American food system, a world dominated by the rules and regulations of the United States Farm Bills. Massive and abstruse pieces of federal legislation that are reworked every five years or so, the farm bills are little understood but enormously influential on food and farm related subjects from food stamps to commodity crops to conservation and trade.

Activist speaker, writer and publisher Dan Imhoff illuminated that world for the lay public (and perhaps also for members of Congress) in his 2007 book, Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill.

This Interview tracks over Imhoff's childhood in York PA, his education, his travels in Asia and Europe after college, some of important influences in his thinking about the environment (including a businessman who later became his father-in-law), his interest in a variety of environmental issues, and his life in Northern California, where he and his wife have a small farm that provides much of the food for their family.

With the recent publication of CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories, Imhoff took on the increasingly contentious world of American meat production. He is currently at work on a revised edition of Food Fight.

Access Points

People:
Imhoff, Dan
Imhoff, Quincey Tompkins
Jackson, Wes
Kirschenmann, Fred
Tompkins, Douglas

Organizations:
Esprit (Firm)
Foundation for Deep Ecology
Kellogg Foundation
Watershed Media
Wild Farm Alliance

Subjects:
Agricultural processing industry
Agricultural subsidies -- Law and legislation
Agriculture and state
Animal rights
Authorship
Community-supported agriculture
Environmentalism
Factory farms
Food industry and trade
Food stamps
Nutrition

Interview 1, April 14, 2011

Box: Electronic Records, E-records: MSS_309.ref137.1 (Material Type: electronic records)
Fales Library and Special Collections
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
70 Washington Square South
2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012