Today's Food News: The Farm Bill and Small Farms in Poland

Carolyn Lochhead explored where things stand with the Farm Bill in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a deadline of April 18th for passing the bill, but Lochhead reports that negotiations for the final bill are going slow.

Also, Elizabeth Rosenthal writes in today's New York Times about the difficulty small, family-run farms in Poland face in abiding by European Union regulations for selling meat, milk and produce. Basically, the EU's health and safety standards are geared towards big farming operations, not family-run farms, so the smaller farms are unable to afford to buy the equipment and make other investments that would bring their operations up to the EU standards. She explores the effect of this reality on family farming and on organic farming in the EU, since so many European family farms operate on organic farming principles.