Human Interest

It isn't surprising that the more a country has developed, the more wasteful they are. I just think that we need to change this standard. We can not keep this up if we want to sustain ourselves for centuries to come. If we are going to change our consumption culture, we need to look at why it has become the way it is. Why do we see food as unappealing? This is an interesting video and certaintly makes you think twice about throwing anything away. 

Ted explains it well how we all waste perfectly good food that people would like to eat. Also it was amazing how much food was in the dumpsters that was just a day or week old. That meat could feed hundreds of people that are struggling to eat and all that meet to waste. 

Ted talks about just how wasteful our planet is. How we just ignore the issue and act like it will  not affect us in the future. When he shows you video and pictures of massive piles of the ends of a loaf of bread or all the food that Stop and Shop throws out because it does not "look" good for the customer. How every little bit of help counts you can try to make a little bit of an effort to be less wasteful. We have so much unnecessary waste. Like when he uses the example of how many people throw away the ends of a loaf of bread then he shows the waste of the ends of bread in massive piles it makes you sick. Especially with all of the hungry people in the world we need to be more resourceful.

Consequences of living near industrial sites - even if it is farming.

This is pretty insane. I've seen other video's where it is a similar situation around chicken farms in the U.S. The people can't even go outside most of the time due to the smell, and it makes me wonder how much of the way we eat is truly devastating the planet. Beyond the smell, I can't help wonder what these types of farms would do the ground water beneath.

Agriculture has evolved very much over time to many different methods of growing things and theyve changed the way we affect the soil.-CJ

In this article it talks about the development of agriculture  and how most of it started. This article relates to my world cultural geography class by telling how people used agriculture to provide for themselves and better there methods year after year. The use of technology and the pesticides they used to help there crops grow is similar  in our class to the was technology was developed and helped out a lot in the fields and in everyday life.

This is very interesting insight on how farmers use precision agriculture to customize how they cultivate each square foot of their fields. In my opinion precision agriculture is a good way for farmers to know exactly what they need to do to their field and what they should plant. It also is a way for them to make sure none of the areas within their field underperform. 

British artist Mishka Henner took photographs and enhanced the colors of feedlots to reveal the agribusiness of meat production. Photographs of feedlots are considered illegal and the legal repercussions of Mishka Henner are not clear at the moment, but the photographs are shocking and reveal again how little Americans know about their food production. 

Americans have changed the places and utilized them to build agribusiness empires and have introduced new problems to the landscape of feedlot and farming towns.

This article makes me sickened. With previous knowledge of factory farms I know of the horrors that go on but this takes the cake. These pictures shown in the article depict the chemical and waste spill off which I am absolutely sure this is NOT good for the environment.

Beautiful imagery at one scale tells an unsavory story at another.

These maps are interesting, in the fact that the heartland of the United States differs so much from either coast.  Both the coasts, as seen in the first map grow fruits and vegetables.  The center of the country grows wheat, and wheat is the dominant  crop of the country.  This might account for the reason why fruits and vegetables are more expensive than grain based products.  The second map helps to drive home this point even further, of how different the coasts are from the heartland.  What I also thought was funny, however, was the author's comment that it looks like an electoral map.  Perhaps, the reason heartland states tend to side with each other and republicans is because of shared interests in the political arena.

Unit 5 Agricultural and Rural Land Use

This picture and article talks about the main use of the agricultural growth in the United States. It shows how most and almost all of the agribusiness is in the growth of feed and food for animals on the ranches rather than humans. The amount of money made is astounding with how far the table tilts toward animal feed.

This relates to Human Geography because agriculture is one of the main points. It shows how people use agribusiness and ow it leans more toward the consumption of animals rather than humans. 

This link consists of two maps that show agricultural land use in America. Nearly all of the "breadbasket region" is used not to feed people, but rather to create feed for cows and other animals. 

The New York Times article associated with the video above offers a great glimpse into the inner works of how agribusiness technologies have transformed the American family farm.  

Tags: agriculture, food production, agribusiness, unit 5 agriculture.

Things to consider when teaching about food production from a geographical perspective - remember to link to Biomes.

#Food is #geographical and #mobile...

Ten engaging resources on the geography of food

This topic connects to our agricultural unit. This article describes the explaining of food. Knowing where our food comes from is a big component in lit today, with all the GMO's going around we don't know what we r busy consuming daily. Having more information in our minds about food would help decrease the long term affects of genetically modified organisms, help maintain a healthy economy, provide more resources such as water, because if GMO's do come to an end then the water will not be as polluted as it is now due to the runoff from the remaining chemicals in GMO's, and also provide a healthy environment for everyone. 

I absolutely love this article. It touches on many of the most important and challenging issues facing food production in the world, ranging from food manufacturing ethics to global hunger. I think it's interesting how, although we all eat food everyday, we don't think about the many implications associated with the production and consumption of food. To more privileged people, food is not a big deal, as anyone can get food at any time of day. However, for people who are trying to solve the problems associated with food in the modern world or for people who are suffering from hunger and malnutrition, the information presented in this article is extremely important. Brilliant minds can come together to propose potential solutions for all the problems facing food distribution. I can't wait for the day every child can go to bed with a full stomach, and I am willing to do my part to help make that happen.

I mentioned this through an allusion in another article, but GMOs and the movements against them perplex me.  I don't think that fossil-fuel burning engines are natural, but many anti GMO people that claim they are bad for the environment leave me completely stunned as to their intolerance for what could possibly  benefit other people.  I feel very much an outsider when I examine many topics of controversy related to GMOs, and I am quite sure that I have consumed them before -- and loved them?  as for the FDA... I don't approve of the FDA.  They like more money coming into their pocket more than bettered well-being of citizens.  When I mentioned to my doctor that I wanted to apply for medical marijuana for a series of conditions that I have following a severe accident, I was told that they refused because it was not fully endorsed, approved, or even allowed by the FDA.  That really pissed me off because I suffer from excruciating pain every day and night of my life.  Could you imagine being a poor person in need of food, and the only viable way of getting food was through the production of GMOs...? and then some pseudo-hippie activists that didn't live through the 1960s trying to be all like, "We don't want anyone to have GMOs!"... I pose that abstractly, because I view most everything with a level of abstraction and distance from the situation, sampling perspectives with which I may empathize or consider.  I keep thinking that this world around us all came from a big bang, with other possible universes before that, and something  before that... and I really can't see Capitalism ever becoming as bad as it is, with such disregard for other people's wellbeing, until I look at today's world.

So many articles about organic or genetically engineered foods are written with someone with a very defined position on the subject (much like abortion, gun control or other controversial topics).  This article is an attempt to separate out the good the bad and the ugly regarding genetically engineered foods.   

this is crazy

This makes absolutely no sense to me.  How does the freshness of the scallop even last a trip like this?  What is the transportation time back and forth? 

This type of nonsense only makes sense in a world where the bottom dollar is the only way to way to evaluate decisions.  However, resource conservation (think of the food miles!), fair labor prices, and the preservation of local cultural economies are certainly issues that should be considered. 

Tags:  food, economic, labor, globalization, food production, agribusiness, agriculture.