For the action project, my group focused on the issue of food waste. We set up interviews with representatives who all had different roles in the food system. We interviewed professor Karen Litfin, professor Sally Brown from the ESRM department, a representative from HFS Athletes dining, a representative from the UW farm, and a representative from Imperfect Produce. We asked our interviewees questions regarding their definition of food waste, the impact of food waste on the global community, their role in addressing the issue of food waste, and how students could get more involved to address food waste.
Through our interviews, I learned about how there are viable solutions to avoid food waste, however, people are unaware of these. Something that stood out to me from our project is that it is difficult to avoid waste. Many of our interviewees revealed that despite putting in the efforts to reduce food waste, it is inevitable to completely avoid food waste. Furthermore, this project challenged me to self-reflect and self-contemplate about where my food comes from, where it goes after, and where it could go instead.
This project built upon ideas presented in lecture and the readings. The disparity in global food availability has been shaped by political factors. On a global scale, there is not a food shortage. However, due to political advantages, and issues surrounding governance, there is a global misallocation of food. The misallocation of food also relates to class content where we discussed the inequalities at each link in the US commodity chain. Much like how minorities in the US are disadvantaged, on the global scale developing countries are at a disadvantage. Large western corporations go into developing countries to exploit resources and take advantage of cheap labor. For example, palm oil is sourced from Indonesia and used in the industrialization of food to extend the shelf life of foods we eat.
This action project was a great learning experience and I got to work with a great group of people. Being able to go out and apply and learn first-hand content covered in lectures was impactful.
Link to our video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAPDmRUX5OE&feature=youtu.be