Blog 4
Food Scarcity: An Environmental Wakeup Call
Consequences of environmental degradation is becoming more globally aware and evidence has shown that environmental degradation is leading to food scarcity throughout the world. People have been taking advantage of the surplus of the Earth’s resources and eventually this leads to scarcity. For example, the massive overfishing eventually led to scarcity of fish because they weren’t able to reproduce as fast as the rate of exploiting the fish. Land has also been increasingly expanding due to agriculture. The resources we take are beginning to affect us globally rather than just locally. This is proven from the evidence of climate change and the greenhouse effect. The result of food scarcity will eventually lead to instability to the society because many people will not be able to afford food as the prices begin to increase. More people will go hungry from the result of not being able to afford the nourishment they need for themselves and their family. As environmental degradation expands it is affecting the global economy as well.
Many people agree that our over exploitation habits cannot continue especially with an expanding population. We need to become more sustainable in our living environment. This includes using more energy efficient technologies and converting to alternate energies that are less harmful to our environment such as wind and solar power. Also to reduce our over exploitation rates Future food security depends on creating a sustainable environment.
Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems
The sales of organic products is continuously increasing as people are realizing the serious impacts on public health and the environment that chemical fertilizers and pesticides are causing. The estimated environmental and health costs resulting from chemical fertilizers and pesticides are about $12 billion a year. Field investigations has shown that environmental benefits from organic crops were equal to or greater than conventional crops. This included high levels of soil organic matter benefiting soil and water resources through drought years. As well as crop rotations reducing soil erosion and pest problems and the recycling of livestock wastes reducing pollution while benefiting the agriculture. However, initially there were higher costs for organic farming systems the costs evened out throughout the year compared to conventional farming. The National Organic Program offers production methods that are based on certified practices that give the consumers assurance of how their food was produced. Their agricultural methods prohibits the use of synthetic chemicals, genetically modified organisms, and sewage sludge. The aim of organic agriculture is to increase ecological processes that conserve soil and water resources, yet still improve plant nutrition. Field investigations has proved that this can be down and the organic practices can be adopted to the conventional farming systems to show a sustainable and ecological improvement.
The Agricultural Crisis as a Crisis of Culture
Wendel Berry describes how his farming life used to be like in his childhood. Farms were usually held by families that lived on their farming property. They grew their own vegetables and produced their own meat, milk, and eggs. It was hard work, but the work payed for their ideal type of living. Today farming has lost its culture. Post World War II has led to new technologies and farms have become increasing mechanized. New technologies has led to bigger and more economically based farms owned from business men all wanting to gain manpower. These bigger businesses has pushed the family farms aside who can no longer compete with the larger businesses. The farm people still remaining have to work even harder and are living more of what they buy rather than their own produce. The phrase “Get big or get out” has taken action. Farming has become a source of power and all about making profit and chemical fertilizers and pesticides are constantly being added. Berry describes this as “poisons” being added to their crops. The farm culture has been lost and replaced with technology. The traditional farming culture has been ignored. A farming culture that created farm communities based on familiarity and knowledge of the farm. The communities had value, aspiration, and connected with the environment. We are now left with only small parts of those communities and if it continues, all of the traditionally farm culture will be lost. The best farming requires nurture and that is done by a farmer and not a technician or businessman. A good farmer is one who understands the culture and that is what we need to work on.
Women’s Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation
Vandana Shiva connects gender and diversity and describes how women’s work is involved in diversity. Many women work to sustain their families and communities and different woman have different jobs. Many women are not being recognized for their work because they musti-task and work at too many different kinds of jobs. In many cultures women take part in the agricultural work. They produce, reproduce, consume and take part in the biodiversity of agriculture. Their knowledge based on nature involves seed preparation, germination requirements and soil choice. These women produce through biodiversity. It is important to provide our crops with the right nourishment. Corporate scientists produce through uniformity where economic and power dominate. For women farmers, biodiversity has intrinsic value while for corporate scientists the biodiversity is just there to provide them with the raw materials they need for profit. Genetic engineering is becoming more commonly used and we need to become aware of the risks and possible future consequences. This can include altering the composition of food; new proteins that cause allergic reactions; antibiotic resistant genes may diminish the effectiveness of some antibodies to humans; may have risks on domestic animals; and genetically engineered crops may harm wildlife. Women farmers have the knowledge and skills for nourished crops and their practices should continuously be used.
Reflection
The switch to capitalism in the geographic past which, allows for private ownership rather than by the state has emphasized growth, profits, and a market economy. Capitalism combined with technological advance has led to the industrial revolution (Norton, 2007). From the past to present food has been a major source of income. We live in a world that is shaped by food from our own nutritional needs to economic growth. In the past cities needed to be located close to their resources and the food that the people needed remained close. According to the Von Thunen model there were different zones for specific agricultural use developed around a market. The product intensity decreases with increasing distance from the market. The city (market) was located in the centre. The most perishable foods needed to be close because they had the highest transport costs, followed by forestry products, crops, and last of all grazing (Norton, 2007).
In the film How Food Shapes our Cities, Carolyn Steel compares the old urbanization to the new urbanization with both revolving around food ( http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/carolyn_steel_how_food_shapes_our_cities.html ). Food used to be at the core of the city and getting food used to be a social event among the people living within the city. Today we have advanced in our technologies and shopping now usually involves for us to get into a car and drive to the nearest walmart. Steel described this as “food miles” and that is how she explained how cities feed themselves. This also includes the city’s dependence on imported goods and its reliance on transportation to bring food into the cities as they continue to grow and expand. New technologies have also changed the way we use and make our food. Today many new products allow us to cook by simply just adding water. Many new products that are “simpler” are constantly producing. We don’t have to make our own butter or slaughter our own chickens anymore. Everything we need can basically be found in one store already made for us. But how are these products being developed? The documentary film Food Inc. further explores this question. Today the average American supermarket has over 47, 000 different products all creating a fantasy image leading us to believe there was no harm in production. For example, a cow happily grazing grass as in the picture shown below.
The reality is a factory not a farm and the animals are usually raised under inhumane conditions (Hungry for Change, 2009). The industry has developed a curtain over where our food is coming from and how it is produced. Industries have become more powerful and assembly lines goals are to develop faster, bigger, better, and cheaper produce. This means many pesticides, growth hormones, and genetic engineering are altering our foods to achieve these goals. For example, tomatoes are ripened faster by endosulfan. Many of these methods we don’t even know are safe. We need to become more aware of the reality and realize the harmful effects. Endosulfan disrupts our hormones and a low dose in a fetus can be linked to male reproductive harm, autism, and birth defects (Hungary for Change, 2009). Studies show that children who live near farm fields or other application sites are more likely to get childhood cancer or suffer from neurodevelopmental disorders (Hungry for Change, 2009). The reliance of pesticides and the increase in transportation to transport these goods has caused pollution in our atmosphere.
Over the last 48 hours my diet included:
Day 1
-Toast with peanut butter and honey, milk
-Pizza pop, grapes, orange juice
-Spaghetti, cheese toast, milk
-2 cookies, grapes
Day 2
-Toast with peanut butter and honey, milk
-Egg and toast
-Sausage and macaroni, grapes
I would say this describes my typical diet, but I usually also eat a lot of fruit when it is available in my household. I don’t usually pay big attention to where my food is coming from and I would say my biggest concern is the amount of miles my food travels. The average food item travels 1, 500 miles before it reaches a person’s home increasing the carbon admission in the atmosphere (Hungry for Change, 2009). My goal is to purchase more locally produced food following the 100 mile diet. The 100 mile diet was inspired by ecologist Gary Paul Nabham who used the phrase “Coming home to eat.” This diet was a year of eating foods that were produced locally within a 100 mile range in the San Francisco area. Documentaries such as Food inc. spread the truth about the food production and many people are becoming concerned of where there food is coming from. Eating locally gives us the opportunity to know exactly what we are eating and where it is coming from. Also we will be supporting many family farms and reduce the amount of transportation. Therefore will be helping the environment too by reducing the carbon admission into the atmosphere. The 100 mile diet has inspired many others. I even found a website holding a Manitoba 100 mile diet! This will help me find where I can get local foods close to my home. Follow this link to find out where you can find locally produced foods within Manitoba.
http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/food/consumers/index.html
Resources
Berry, W. (2009) The agricultural crisis as a crisis of culture. In T. Easton (Eds.) Environmental studies (3rd ed.) (pp. 137-140). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Brown, L. (2009) Food scarcity: An environmental wakeup call. In T. Easton (Eds.) Environmental studies (3rd ed.) (pp. 141-145). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Hungry For Change. (2009) About the issues. Retrieved March 9, 2010 from http:// www.foodincmovie.com/about-the-issues.php
Norton, W. (2007). Human Geography (6th Edition). Oxford University Press, Don Mills.
Pimental, D. (2009) Environmental, energetic, and economic comparisons of organic, and conventional farming systems. In T. Easton (Eds.) Environmental studies (3rd ed.) (pp. 146-151). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Shiva, V. (2009) Women’s indigenous knowledge and biodiversity conservation. In T. Easton (Eds.) Environmental studies (3rd ed.) (pp. 209-212). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.
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