Food Day in the United States is celebrated annually on October 24 and often throughout the month.
The celebration was started in 1975 by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in an attempt to create an event similar to Earth Day.
[2] Food Day in the U.S. is typically celebrated by nationwide and local events to educate people about the food system and/or to gain support for policies that event hosts deem to be improvements for the current food system, such as improved nutrition labels, funding for SNAP, and decreased use of antibiotics in food-producing animals typically in factory farms.
Events have been hosted by a variety of different groups including local governments, food co-ops, schools, college campuses, non-profits, businesses, government agencies, food banks, farms and farmers, and restaurants.
This economic crisis for farmers was a trade embargo by the US on Canadian beef, based on a single case of BSE (or mad cow disease) in Alberta, Canada.