Sources:
1. Bourne Jr. Joel K. "The End Of Poverty," The Global Food Crisis, June 2009, National Geographic Society, 20 Jan 2010, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text
2. Pollan, Michael, "An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief," The Food Issue, 9 October 2008, The New York Times, 12 Jan 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
3. Nichols, John. "The World Food Crisis," 24 April 2008, The Nation, 21 Jan 2010, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/nichols
Because the governments have began to subsidize cash crops, wheat, soybeans, corn, and rice, that is all farmers will grow. It has caused many regions to become monocultures where they only grow one crop. The lack of crop diversidy has made it almost impossible to grow healthy crops without the help of chemical fertilizers and pestisides. Farmers have also turned to raising livestock in feedlots where they pump the animals full of so many antibiotics that new drug resistant bacterial strains have been created. The way that farmers grow and produce these cash crops use a tremendous ammount of fissil fuesl and water, both of which are unrenewable resources.
Another startling fact is that 40% of all world grain output is fed to animals which another 11% for cars and trucks. That leaves only 49% of the worlds grain supply for human consumption. And who knows how much of that 49% goes to processed junk food. It may not seem like a big deal but consider the fact that most places around the world now only grain because it yields the most money.
Right now most countries import and export a lof of food. But what happens when they have major food shortages? They are going to start keeping all the food for themselves. Eventually there could be wars over food. I'm sure our country couldn't survive on just wheat and feedlot beef.
We need to adopt new farming habits and techniques that involve getting away from monocultures. We need to grow a huge variety of fruits and vegetables.
In poverty struck food deprived places in INdia and Africa they have begun to give the tools neccissary to grow grain. Lets teach them how to grow other crops as well.
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appears factual, the only advice is to do a little more research. this will benefit you in the future. make sure to read articles you have not read yet. what exactly do you want to do for your senior project. it is clear you want to work with food, but how is this going relate to your project? are you going give examples of how eating one type of food isn't very healthy and growing a variety of crops is healthy and leads to a better diet. how can companies make sure that peoples health is important and why they should make food for health concerns versus making food for money.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great start I would just suggest that you link the topics you stated directly to the source you got them from. It is a scary thought that there could be wars over food again like there were hundreds of years ago. I might also touch on exactly what the subsidized foods mean to our health, the grounds they are grown on and maybe even what exporting food means to the quality of food we have in our home towns.
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