After reading this week’s learning resources, my perspective on meat consumption has changed significantly. My previous belief about meat consumption was that it was best to keep farming outdoors and “natural” rather than participate in the often-unethical farming of indoor livestock. I never realized that outdoor farming had as large of a negative environmental impact as Monbiot points out in… Read more »
Our environment is changing. When we consider the state of our environment and the various negative impacts that have taken place over time, particularly those caused by human consumption and fossil fuel emissions. However, changing how one product is produced or farmed can have more of an impact than people realize. Various grains are extremely versatile and used in different… Read more »
In this busy world it is easy to feel disconnected from food. Often food is an afterthought, a product we consume because we know it is essential. Rarely do we give thought to how this product came to be. This mindless eating is not unique to fast food, many people quickly grab some vegetables or a juice to fuel their… Read more »
What will happen- ecologically, politically, and economically- as our world’s water sources are depleted? Water is connected to agriculture through grain production; this means that water shortages around the world, due to climate change, desertification, and over-exhaustion of aquifers will produce food shortages as well. While groundwater continues to diminish through overuse and drilling into aquifers becomes more energy and… Read more »
In Amanda Little’s essay, Power Trip, she examines the ways in which fertilizers, coupled with the seed engineering breakthroughs of the Green Revolution have brought us agricultural abundance. And yet, being able to feed an expanding population has also produced many practices that have put strain on the environment and come at a cost to other living systems. Little explores… Read more »
Our apathy, our lack of passion, is what might do us in in the end. We’ve become so acclimatized to what we are exposed to in our lives. Growing up in the Midwest, we become apathetic to farm animals. After all, do they not exist for anything but our needs? Spending a decade in California gets one very used… Read more »
This was such an engaging course looking at the politics, policy, and environmental consequences of the world food system. It is so much more complicated and interconnected than I had imagined. I think my biggest takeaway is the connection between industrial agriculture practices and climate change. Industrial farming has removed people from being connected to the land. Monoculture production of… Read more »
Contemplative practice #9 asks what kind of soil I plant myself in. It’s a great question. For a good part of my life, the answer would have been industrial soil—overworked, pushed for yield, with little time to rest. I was not at all unique. Most of my friends and colleagues had talked about their busy-ness like the weather, resigned about… Read more »
The most impactful contemplative practice for me was week 6 when we learned about the use of fossil fuels in our food system. It was interesting to sit and reflect on foods that I eat and the luxury that I have because of fossil fuels. So many people don’t have the same luxuries. When going through the guided contemplative practice… Read more »