Back to the Roots, my Common App short answer

I need some last minute feedback on my short answer. Thank you!

Prompt: write about an extracurricular activity that has influenced you.

Having been raised in an urban city like Portland, Oregon, I had never really known much about farming. I had always thought of agriculture as an industry dominated by an oligopoly of extremely wealthy individuals who controlled 80% of the market and exploited their immigrant laborers and the rest of the poor 20%.

When I started volunteering on the CSA farms of Riverland and Natural Roots, however, I learned that my image of farming was completely off. With a team of other dedicated Deerfield Academy volunteers, I got my hands dirty and experienced first-hand how to crack, seed, plant, and harvest garlic. From my work on these small, friendly farms, I've learned of the importance of taking care of my environment and of building community. I'm grateful for the experience but most of all, for the chance to learn from a diverse group of socially conscious people different from myself.

This is missing a piece. I think you need a sentence to connect the to halves of the essay. It will be your corpus collosum sentence! You need a sentence to show that your experience gave you a perspective on farming that "broadened" your idea of it. As the essay is now... I don't really know how to explain what I mean... but your experience of planting garlic in a community atmosphere does not change the fact that we have exploitation and imbalance in the industry. Your experience did not show that your perspective on the industry had been "completely off."

So... in order to make sense, I think a sentence needs to be added right in the middle of the essay... a sentence about "gaining a new perspective," rather than suggesting that your perspective had been "completely off."

:-)