foodperson.com

If you missed it in the theaters, on video and last week on PBS, you still can see Food Inc. this week on KTWU, Channel 11, in Topeka, and you’ll get a Kansas perspective, too. The Oscar-nominated movie is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 5, on KTWU.

Even if you have seen the movie, though, you still might want to tune in, because KTWU is going to present two locally produced followup shows after the movie. First, at 8:30, according to a Kansas Rural Center press release, the station will give a half-hour presentation on Kansas food and farm history. Then, at 9 p.m., the station offers up “Taking Stock: Perspectives on Food Production in Kansas,” a panel discussion of issues raised in the movie, which questioned many aspects of the way American agriculture is producing our food.

The panel includes local food promoters Dan Nagengast of the Kansas Rural Center and Diana Endicott of Good Natured Family Farms, a marketing alliance of farms in eastern Kansas and western Missouri. The panel also includes representatives of “conventional” farming (the get big or get out model, I guess): Steve Baccus, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, and Mark Smith, president of the Kansas Livestock Association. For the political perspective, there’s state Secretary of Agriculture Josh Svaty and former Kansas governor John Carlin, currently a visiting professor in political science at K-State.

Dan reports that the discussion, which was taped in advance, went well. I’m looking forward to it. Now, if I can just get KTWU to come in on my television. I’ll be working on my rabbit ears…