Michael T. Roberts

Is a level playing field possible?

Fraud is intentional.

You're dealing with an economic motive.

And that's why it's so hard to eradicate.

My name is Michael T. Roberts.

I am the founding executive director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law School in Los Angeles.

I teach and write on various subject matters related to food law and policy, and the area of food fraud has been a specific area of focus now for a number of years for me.

I was practicing law with a very good practice and a very good law firm, but I found myself reaching my late 30s, and I just felt like I needed something more creative and ended up reading an article in The Future of Food that focused on technology.

It caught my attention because I grew up around food.

My grandparents had a fruit and vegetable farm that I worked on all my years,

My father was a produce broker.

Honestly, I just decided then I was going to turn to food.

And I ended up getting an advanced degree.

And then I went back as a professor at the University of Arkansas and headed up a national agricultural law center.

I taught a food law and policy class at the University of Arkansas.

It was the first one to be taught in the country.

And it just took off from there.

Well, I first experienced it on the farm.

We would use pesticide in the orchards.

Not a lot.