As we proceed further into the Anthropocene, we are entering the unknown as a planet. Many aspects of our world are behaving less predictably than ever as a result of human impact. Shocks to the complex global food system can come in many forms, from natural disasters to world trade disputes to pest outbreaks. How resilient is our food system,… Read more »
As a society, we have devalued food. Therefore, change is necessary, but how and where should change occur? Throughout this course, we’ve looked at the global food system as a connected set of processes; from seeds to growing, harvesting, transport, trade, and water, each becomes interrelated and dependent on one another. To change the system that exists now,… Read more »
Our relationship with our food has changed, as has the perception of our impact. These two elements of our introspective analysis have come together in our search for a better way address hunger, be less wasteful, be more healthy, and become more sustainable. In my own exploration of food and the relationships it has to politics, economics, health, social justice,… Read more »
Much of the conversation over GMOs within the US natural food industry has focused on issues of labeling and the dangers that multinational corporations like Monsanto pose to organic farmers. For many, the 2008 documentary Food Inc. was their first exposure to the dark side of these high-tech advances, detailing how intellectual property lawsuits from agrochemical firms have put some… Read more »
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this blog post, because there is so much to distill. The global food system is one of the densest, most complex subjects I’ve ever studied. I suppose the main thought I took away from this class is that there will need to be some massive overhauls and a much deeper and widespread… Read more »
In recent times there has been an increase in awareness of the downsides associated with industrial agriculture. The loss of soil, inefficient water and resource usage, toxic chemicals, poorly regulated GMO’s, and the inhumane environments for animals. With such a long list of skeletons, it’s no wonder that a range of movements to shift away from this system have… Read more »
Hunger is in effect a systemic issue. Our media over simplifies it to a lack of food or resources when we must in-fact look at a broader system that changes how and why there is hunger in a world where we have enough food to feed everyone. There are an assortment of complex variables at play. First we see… Read more »
On February 6th, Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched and landed the Falcon Heavy rocket. One of the purported goals of SpaceX is to “make life multiplanetary,” locating and extracting resources in space. What happens when we apply the lessons of the biofuel boom and the 2008 world food crisis to SpaceX? This massive investment of earthly resources may not yield… Read more »
I enjoyed reading Karen Litfin’s work in “Thinking Like a Planet.” It goes along with some of the questions I have been asking about using Earth Systems to inform human systems, making them circular rather than linear. It was nice to see ideas and examples of how it is being done, such as virtuous cycles rather than vicious cycles. I… Read more »
What is the real cost of cheap food? In Michael Carolan’s book, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, he tries to answer this question by explaining chapter by chapter what we lose when we consume “cheap” food (anything mass produced and sold as affordable to the working class.) Whether a country that produces cheap food or a human who consumes… Read more »