Extraordinary news: The UCLA School of Law has received a $4 million gift from the Resnick Family Foundation to establish the Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, with $3 million additional in matching endowment funds. The Resnick family has a history of commitment to projects that support the public health.

The press release states that this program is the first of its kind at a top tier law school. It “will explore ways to hasten improvements in the modern food system, focusing on reforming food law and policy for the benefit of the consumer. …This gift will support research, education and scholarship to promote public health and advance sound food law and policy.” It will address food safety, distribution, and access; reform of food law and policy.

Here, in a word, is what the Resnicks said: That since UCLA is located in the food capital of the world, and since California grows more food than anywhere else, and since the global food trade has changed the Western diet in an unprecedented way, with profound health implications, the goals of the gift include to help consumers understand what they’re eating, to improve the clarity and accuracy of food labeling, to broaden access to healthy food options, and, ultimately, to save lives.

That sounds good to me. The Resnicks are visionaries. Get in line, everyone. They were first, but they will soon be joined by more and more like-minded individuals.

This gift is expected as well to support consumer-oriented food law and policy, to help consumers learn to understand the food industry and central issues relating to food; to improve food labeling, to ensure food safety, and to increase access to healthy food. The Resnicks are committed to changing our awareness of food- and health-related issues, and to changing our eating patterns and associated health outcomes.

It’s time. It’s past time. This is good news.