Something I am now continually reminding myself about is the importance of context, and questioning how it all fits together. When you\u2019re trying to determine whether something belongs in a system, you cannot simply think about it as a singular object. Rather, one must consider everything that connects\u2014what flows in and out, how are different parts linked? Why are they linked in that way? Who is left out? Who could stand to benefit? For these past two lessons, we looked at how this \u201cbig picture\u201d thinking applies in food systems, water systems, and commodity chains.<\/p>\n
Commodity chains are extraordinary. They\u2019re an amazing achievement for humankind, but also carry hidden agendas that might not emerge until closer inspection. Who controls them? Why do they operate in this way? We have all seen charts of how companies are distributed amongst only a few corporate owners; big webs with several seemingly disparate products made under the same corporate umbrella. Some of them are so large that even the people involved within them might not know what the next \u201cstep\u201d is in the chain. Take, for example, cacao farmers from the Ivory Coast<\/a>. Many of them hadn\u2019t seen chocolate before, and didn\u2019t even know what it was.<\/p>\n I now try to look at food-based commodities in my life and be mindful of where they came from, who worked hard to ensure I could have it, and how things got to be that way. Usually, I have no idea where something came from without a lot of research! Should I turn to farmers\u2019 markets for a more direct commodity chain? Or should I simply be more aware of what I consume and how it affects those who have worked hard so I could have it?<\/p>\n vprometropolis. \u201cFirst taste of chocolate in Ivory Coast – vpro Metropolis.\u201d YouTube, YouTube, 21 Feb. 2014, www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zEN4hcZutO0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Something I am now continually reminding myself about is the importance of context, and questioning how it all fits together. When you\u2019re trying to determine whether something belongs in a system, you cannot simply think about it as a singular object. Rather, one must consider everything that connects\u2014what flows in and out, how are different parts linked? Why are they… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[105,131,116,132,115],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-professors-corner","tag-cacao","tag-cocoa","tag-commodity-chains","tag-ivory-coast","tag-supply-chains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385w18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}