Instructors:
Lucy Jarosz (jarosz@u.washington.edu)
Ann Anagnost (anagnost@u.washington.edu)
Course Description:
This course explores how food production and consumption creates meanings, identities, relationships, and values that extend far beyond meeting our nutritional needs. It is organized thematically to include considerations of the industrialization of food, food and health, local and alternative food systems, hunger, and food democracy movements. The learning objectives for this course are to encourage a deeper understanding of these themes, to enhance your ability to synthesize and analyze issues and debates among the topics, and to reveal how the questions and concepts introduced each session are applicable to your lives.
Readings:
Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) is the only assigned reading for this course. But we hope it will just be the beginning of your explorations. We have included many suggestions for further reading (and viewing) for those who would like to explore food issues further.
Course Schedule:
January 14: Making Industrial Food
January 28: What to Eat?
February 11: Food and the Environment
February 25: The Contemporary Food Crisis
March 11: Toward Food Democracy: Local and Alternative Food Systems
Another UpdateThis Time on GMOs
Apparently the USDA is reopening the question on regulation of GMO foods in our food supply. To weigh in on the public comment period, please follow this
link.
Here is the information on SRI:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_Rice_Intensification
The article I mentioned is cited below:
Uphoff, Norman (2007) 'Agroecological alternatives: Capitalising
on existing genetic potentials', Journal of Development Studies, 43:1, 218 - 236
There is a great picture comparing two rice plants - one grown conventionally and one grown through SRI.
I like to classify SRI as a "technique" rather than a "technology" - it is a method that demonstrates understanding of the science behind how a rice plant grows and uses labor-intensive practices that promotes the factors contributing to a rice plant thriving. While as Lucy pointed out, this is not a silver bullet, I believe that funding more long-term serious studies on opportunities like this holds great potential benefit. Additionally, proponents of techniques like these need to understand that culture and sociology are just as important to adoption as are straight cost-benefit analyses.
A useful search term for ideas like this is "LEISA" - Low External Input and Sustainable Agriculture. "External Inputs" refer to technologies like petroleum fertilizers, chemical agents (pesticides, herbicides), and other interventions that come from outside the system instead of from within it (Ex. cow manure from local animals).
ReplyDeleteLooking at the laws of thermodynamics, we know that energy must come from somewhere, and the ultimate source of energy on this planet is the sun. Thus, the closer we can get to directly harvesting energy from "fresh sunlight" (photosynthesis) instead of from "collected sunlight" (fossil fuels), the more likely we are to develop sustainable systems with longevity potential.
We briefly discussed other groups acting as "forces of good"....I'd love to hear everyone's favorites and why!
ReplyDeletePeter Singer is speaking tonight and I look forward to sharing about what he says.
here is his list of favorites:
Hi again ladies!
Thanks for taking my question during class - with all the excitement and endless questions during and after, you may have forgotten my request - I would love your list of "top 50 favorite organizations" or even just top 10 list - of who is doing good, by your standards, and who is doing good WELL.
I am going to a lecture tonight - I also mentioned it in class, Peter Singer is speaking... and here is his list of "supported" charities (see below, I will post on class site).
But I would also love to know who is doing great research, advocacy, education, policy work, and simple hands-on differences - locally and internationally!
Thanks for sharing the bright spots out there as we learn about what is going on behind the scenes.
I appreciate the class and all that I am learning, and also your passion!
Cheers,
Evonne
http://www.thelifeyoucansave.com/organizations.html
Scientific American has a good article titled, "Top 10 Myths About Sustainability".
ReplyDeleteHighly recommended reading, not just for the ideas, but also to get a glimpse of one perspective from the scientific community.