Category Archives: Consumption

A Solution to Food Security: Woman’s Education

Image from UNICEF Bangladesh, https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/education.html Woman’s access to education has been proven to drop birth rates “the difference between a woman with no years of schooling and with 12 years of schooling is almost four to five children per woman.”  (Winthrop, 2016) This drop has a stabilizing effect by slowing the indefinite amount of people reliant on a limited food system. By looking… Read more »

Dirty Words

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We all know and maybe even use some dirty words.Typically these expletives are used in reaction to pain or frustration, to emphasize a point. Then there is the crowd for which dirty words are such a natural part of the way they speak, they’re hardly aware the words have come out of their mouths. Odd as it may sound,t is… Read more »

Do Your Part, Help Save The World

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(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/climate-change-yes-global-warming-robin-limb) Climate Change is a heavily discussed and debated topic, especially in recent years. With terms frequently used throughout this course such as global warming, greenhouse gases, fuel emissions, and much more, it is clear that there is a serious problem occurring as I write this. While this topic is heavily discussed, seldom people are taking appropriate action to change… Read more »

Bees – Are they really a big deal?

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  Honey bees are an essential part of agriculture and plant life in North America, being a major pollinator of everyday foods such as cranberries, blueberries, tomatoes, apples, and numerous other crops (Schuster). Without bees, we would be left without a key pollinator and without pollination, there would be no more plants, no more animals, and no more man (Latsch)…. Read more »

Denial – Our Most Valuable Renewable Resource

Fossil fuels are everywhere, even in our food. As we learned in week 6, oil is used to power the heavy machinery used on industrialized farms, it is in the fertilizer in the form of petroleum, it is in the plastics that are used to neatly package our food, and it is used to power the planes, trains and automobiles… Read more »

We are like seeds.

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Kimmey, Katelin. Seed of a Soul. 2013. Photograph. Flickr.com8.15.2017 Seeds are resilient, when talking about gardening my brother once said, ‘I always just plant seeds and somehow almost every seed comes up and it amazes me every time’.  Every year when little plants start to push their way through the dirt I remember his words.  However, a seed can do… Read more »

The Cost of Cows

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To function effectively, landscape governance ought to consider the whole system, which would account for the ecological impact and food sustenance needs. There is much profit to be found in land. Cash crops offer huge profits that are motivating a change in land investment and moving large corporations into the field where small farmers once predominated. The farms then tend… Read more »

Systems of Balance

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The ancient wisdom presented by Anupam Mishra his TED Talk showcased a number of things. Not least of those is the contrast in thinking between the time tested solutions that still work, that were designed and built on the foundation of community, and the money grubbing greed that compels Ivy league institutions and other universities to “invest” in African farmland…. Read more »

The Importance of Land and Water

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Land and water are fundamental concepts that are deeply rooted in the understanding of the political ecology of the world food system. Essentially every industry is in some way or another based on land. Politically speaking land is the most desirable asset because of the minerals and potential opportunity to generate desirable goods and services. Coupled with humanity’s need for… Read more »

Water. Conflict or Cooperation?

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Atkinson, Katherine. Dam. 2005 Photograph. Flickr. www.flickr.com 2017   It is nothing new that we are over depleting our aquafers on a global level. While not everywhere has hit peak water usage yet, many places have as we continue to use our fresh water supply quicker than it can be replenished. This is particularly important with regard to fossil aquifers… Read more »