Please review/critique
mPitzer College's educational foundation is built upon four core values: social responsibility, intercultural understanding, interdisciplinary learning, and student autonomy. Our students utilize these values to create solutions to our world's current and future challenges, both big and small. Keeping our core values in mind, please answer one of the following prompts (Maximum of 4000 characters).
1. Incorporating one or more of our values, propose a solution to a local or global issue you deem important.
Food. Often times overlooked by problems such energy and water, food is the cornerstone of every society that has ever existed. In the modern world, with an exponentially expanding global population, food is a bigger problem than ever. The more people there are, the more food we need. But the more food that we mass produce, the more environmental damage we cause. Genetic modification, pesticides, and other modern farming practices may produce extreme amounts of food, but the side effects of such practices spell disaster in the future. Put simply, how my generation chooses to feed itself will be one of the biggest issues that we will have to face. This summer, I believe I found at least a partial solution to this monumental problem.
Industrial, non-organic agriculture will be the death of this country. Yes, industrial farming techniques raise crop yields in the short term, but the long term damage of these very same techniques makes organic farming the better way to farm over the long term. Industrial agriculture's damage to the environment is immense, and hits a variety of places. Fertilizer breakdown and runoff poisons the air we breathe and the water we drink. Pesticide and herbicide use creates super-pests and super-weeds that are more resistant to efforts to kill them. Non-organic fertilizer use can put various metals and other unwanted products in soil, damaging the very plants that the fertilizer is helping to grow. Our current food production practices aren't just damaging to the environment, they are unsustainable over the next century. A switch to a more sustainable form of agriculture is essential to the continual health and well being not just of the country, but of the world.
I spent two weeks of my summer working on a blueberry farm. But this wasn't just a blueberry farm; it was an organic blueberry farm. This meant that it used no pesticides, herbicides, inorganic fertilizer, or petroleum based products. The farm was small, so we few interns had to learn to handle a multitude of tasks, from picking to pruning and sorting and selling. But despite being difficult, hot, and repetitive, the work was rewarding. It was fascinating to learn about an alternate source of agriculture that, despite being labor intensive, was sustainable without having to dump chemicals on the plants year after year. And on top of doing my small part to save the world, the experiences were novel. I have never before been to a Whole Foods delivery center at five in the morning, or watched a farmers market from start to finish from the seller's point of view. I hadn't sorted blueberries for three hours straight. I certainly had never sat in the passenger seat as my 4'11 aunt, a NYC woman who drives all of twice a year and had to sit on a large pile of phone books so that she could see over the wheel, try to pilot an oversized ford van with a back full of blueberries to market, every so often drifting off onto the shoulder before a violent jerk of the wheel got us back on track. Sitting in the hot sun of a mid-day Massachusetts farmers market, people kept making the same remarks with every purchase. "They're healthier", "these berries are bigger and bluer than any I've ever seen", "They just taste like a blueberry should". It feels good to hear these things, to know that laborious work of the past few days hadn't been wasted. But most importantly, it feels good to know that you're doing your part.
Often times overlooked because of problems concerning energy and water, food is the cornerstone of every society that has ever existed.
In the modern world, with an exponentially expanding global population, having enough food is a bigger problem than ever.Food is not the problem, lack of it is! :)
Yes, industrial farming techniques raise crop yields in the short term, but the long term damage caused by these very same techniques makes organic farming the better way to farm over the long term.
A switch to a more sustainable form of agriculture is essential to the continued health and well being not just of the country, but of the world.
The farm was small, so we few interns had to learn to handle a multitude of tasks, from picking and pruning to sorting and selling.
...who drives all of twice a year and had to sit on a large pile of phone books so that she could see over the wheel, try to pilot an over sized ford van with a back seat full of blueberries to market, every so often drifting off onto the shoulder before a violent jerk of the wheel got us back on track.
I hope this is helpful! Good luck in school and have fun!
:)
