SOS 117 - Bits and Bobs - Selected Comments from the Module Short Answers

 Module 5 - Short Answer

Question 1: 

Give and describe at least one example for each of the following:

1. Food being used for bonding between individuals.

2. Food being used to distinguish social groups or identities.

3. Food being used to strengthen group affiliation.

4. Food being used as a status symbol(s).

5. Food being used for politics.

6. Food being used to achieve specific social objectives.

Your Answer:
1. A great example of food being used for bonding between individuals is when a grandparent uses a holiday meal to coerce her family into coming to visit. As Thanksgiving looms, my mother-in-law has already invited us over for a holiday meal as we have not seen them in person since before the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent quarantine began. Though she works in a highly infectious job, with an elderly spouse, and we are not wanting to catch Covid from her, we have already politely declined the meal, citing a variety of reasons other than the fact that she works in an environment where positive Covid tests happen on a regular basis. I know she just misses us and wants to see us for the holiday. But we've been holed up in the apartment (except for essential trips) since March because neither of us want to take the chance that we happen to be in the 1-3% who die from Covid, or the 20% who have severe, lifelong effects when we have already lost friends to the illness.

2. In the video, I was actually interested most by the pizza rivalry between Chicago and New York City. Having only ever been to NYC, but having a deep dislike of the "Chicago-Style Deep Dish" pizzas that I have tried at seemingly authentic restaurants, I kind of like watching my New York friends argue with my Chicago friends about who has the superior pizza. It's almost a badge of pride for them.

3. As a Jew, I love how the laws of kashrut separate Jews from non-Jews, and how unique the cuisine of the Ashkenazi Jews is compared with the traditional American diet. We feast on days that are not on a typical American calendar, using food as the primary reason to get together. We eat things like gefelte fish, smoked salmon (lox) on bagels, and my husband has now introduced a variety of Ashkenazi dishes to my (convert) palate, just as I have introduced him to my traditional soul food meals, reinvented to meet the standards of kashrut. We also enjoy Halal food, as we have determined that Halal meets the same standards of kosher.

4. In one of the videos this week, a NY based caterer attended and fully catered a very lavish wedding. To me, local should mean cheaper, but this meal looked very fancy. When my husband and I met, as a show of wealth, his mother took us to this upscale restaurant that served rabbit stew with quail eggs. I tried to pick the "safest" option on the menu and still ended up with this gaudy mess of a meal that I just couldn't adapt to. I much prefer the poor shtetl food of my husband's grandparents than those "display of wealth" meals that his mother is so heavily fond of.

5. In my family, we use food to smooth over differences, unite the family, and welcome newcomers. It doesn't matter why you're fighting, you come to Sunday dinner. We'll settle this over roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and cherry pie, with the whole family gathered around her huge dining room table. Hurt feelings are quickly whisked away in the brown gravy. Unkind words are remedied with a good piece of chicken thigh. We're still a family and family sticks together.

6. One of the social objectives mentioned in the film was that food can be used to encourage solidarity. When I first took my husband to meet my family, my grandmother made him a large serving of her favorite meal: liver and onions. Frankly, my sister and I ended up making "curry chicken" (another poor man's adaptation of an international recipe that was picked up abroad), because neither of us gets that "down home comfort" from liver and onions. But that was literally the only meal that she knew how to make that would be loved by a Russian, as much as she (an Irish Catholic) loves. She wanted to welcome him into the family, so she served him a meal that would make him feel more at home than if she'd served the traditional Irish feasts that I have grown up with.

Module 5 Lecture: Food & Culture: Non-Nutritional Goals Through Food (n.d.). [Motion Picture].

Professor Comments: I enjoyed reading each and every one of these, Kathleen! I appreciated the thoughtfulness and details, and all the connections from class to "real life."

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Module 6 Short Answer

Question 2: 

Excluding taste and cost, discuss at least three influences on food choice(s).

Your Answer:
There were only 5 mentioned in the reading: taste, cost, convenience, advertising, and the eating habits of friends and family.

The first one the pops out to me is convenience. It's much easier to pop over to Kroger at 7pm for a head of lettuce and a few tomatoes than it is to chase down the local farmer's market at 7am on a weekday. We would prefer to just pick up an apple off a shelf than to pick one from a tree during "business hours."

Advertising is another big player. When I went to high school, we had several vending machines with brand names on them, brands we recognized from watching television, that showed us it was cool to drink coke, or eat Cheerios. I'm reminded of the commercial for Life Cereal where "I'm not gonna eat it. Well I'm not gonna eat it. Let's make Mikey eat it. Mikey will eat ANYTHING." And then Mikey does, and it's delicious, and now we should all run out and buy Life cereal. I will admit that, as a kid, that ad did me in and I ended up with a box of Life cereal, which I hated. Probably because I'm not Mikey.

Finally, the eating habits of friends and family. As the book mentions, if there's soda around and kids watch their parents drinking soda, they're more likely to drink it too. If they see their family eat apples, they're more likely to eat apples. And in the video on obesity, we see a pair of identical twins, separated at birth, where one grew up eating high fat foods in her Catholic family while the other was basically a vegetarian in her Jewish family.

Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.

Diet and Influences on Food Choice. (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Diet: A Look at Processed Food, Nutrition, and Obesity in the 20th Century (2011). [Motion Picture]. Infobase. Retrieved from https://digital-films-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=43516

Professor Comments: "Probably because I'm not Mikey." I laughed. :)

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Question 4: 

In the context of federal school meal programs, what are "competitive foods" and why are the controversial?

Your Answer:
Competitive foods are the foods sold in vending machines and snack bars at schools that have almost no nutritional value. When my husband began teaching, not only were there 6 vending machines in the school cafeteria (which didn't even serve very nutritious food to begin with), but there was an store-like office where students could go purchase chips and candy. When I was in high school, we had Fruitopia machines, and two candy/cookie/chip vending machines.

They're controversial because they promote obesity in kids, by offering snacks with zero nutritional value, at rock bottom prices, to entice more kids to buy more candy instead of eating the carrot sticks offered at the lunch counter.

I'm happy to report that his current school doesn't have a vending machine, but they do have a little store filled with fresh fruits and veggies for kids to snack on as they like. All for free.

Food Environments (Background Reading). (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Professor Comments: Wow! Where is this utopian-like school? :)

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Question 8:
1. What are the two goals (or levels) that "Farm-to-School" programs aim to achieve?

2. Give three examples of "Farm-to-School" efforts.

3. Discuss two challenges obstructing "Farm-to-School" programs.

Your Answer:
1. The farm to school program aims to increase the use of healthy, locally sourced food in cafeterias, and to educate kids about where their food comes from.

2. According to our textbook, Vermont lives on Mars or something compared to the rest of the United States, as they are the pioneers of the Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) program, and lead the way in collaborative projects that incorporate local farming into schools, not just through farming tours, but by establishing their own gardens, teaching children about plant growing, and helping them enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Vermont also has GMFTS (Green Mountain Farm-to-School) which has grown from a small operation to now serving over 24 school communities in the state.

And the third example of why Vermont lives in 2320 is the Burlington School Food Program, which proved that kids will eat just about anything you throw at them, including full grown carrots, rather than just baby carrots.

3. The main challenges as I see it is that there's so little to gain by the farmers. Yes, they get to help the community, educate some kids, maybe help them make better eating habits (and the textbook describes how some of them do post-program) and maybe that's enough. But they lose money on the venture. They also have to deal with Big Mac eating parents who wouldn't know what to do with a full grown carrot, and they have to teach these kids from scratch as we're so far removed from the farming process that my little niece once told me that milk doesn't even come from a cow; it come's from the store.

Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.

Professor Comments: "Vermont lives on Mars" and in the year "2320." Kathleen, I audibly laughed out loud. :) For Part 3, also difficult to measure the "impact" of all this education/effort, etc.

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Question 10:
1. Describe three kinds of agritourism activities.

2. About how much annual income is agritourism estimated to generate for U.S. farms?

Your Answer:
1. In the wonderland that is Vermont, there's skiing, maple syrup sugaring (?), and plenty of corn mazes, hay rides, pumpkin patches, and and even u-picking can be an agritourism activity.

2. The book says (on page 171), "According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, 23,250 farms provide agritourism and recreation services valued at $566 million." Later on down the page, "Research using a broader definition of agritourism estimates that $800 million to $3 billion a year is generated for U.S. Farm income from agritourism activities." Schnepf Farms alone pulls in just over $900k last year because of its agritourism. And let's not forget Napa Valley and its $11 billion contribution to the California State Economy (p. 174)

Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.

Professor Comments: Again, "In the wonderland that is Vermont" :) Agritourism is big business, isn't it? (Or can be.)

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Module 7 Short Answer 

Question 10: 

Describe three "innovations" or future scenarios as presented in "Tomorrow's Food." What did you think of each of these in the context of food system sustainability?

Your Answer: 

The first one I enjoyed learning about was the miracle berry. I think that with Climate Change now changing the growing cycles of food, and potentially making sweet foods (like strawberries) taste a little bitter when picked because of the growing cycle changes, these miracle berries are going to go a long way towards decreasing our reliance on cane sugar, potentially ending the obesity crisis we studied a few modules ago, and allowing us to enjoy tarter varieties of fruits that we already know and love.

I loved learning about all the edible fungi as meat replacements. Despite my desire to rid the planet of the social ills of the meat industry, I still happily chow down on meat products on a regular basis. For me, what I loved is that these fungi could be grown in a tenth of the space needed for a cow, and supposedly they taste very similar. That's the problem I have with a lot of meat substitutes: they just don't have the flavor profile or texture of the actual meat. But this one looked very promising.

Finally, my least favorite: crickets. I actually have a very intense phobia of crickets so I would never just pop one into my mouth, no matter how desperate I was for food. But seeing them whipped up in flour, as flakes... I could almost see a cricket meat replacement on the horizon. And while I absolutely hate crickets, I would love to see more of them used in food, especially given how nutrient dense they are. Maybe one day we will have a cricket and horse burger with a side of Cod Tail.


Tomorrow's Food: Episode 1 (2015). [Motion Picture]. BBC Worldwide Learning. Retrieved from https://fod-infobase-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=124998&tScript=0

Tomorrow's Food: Episode 2 (2015). [Motion Picture]. BBC Worldwide Learning. Retrieved from https://fod-infobase-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=124999&tScript=0

Tomorrow's Food: Episode 3 (2015). [Motion Picture]. BBC Worldwide Learning. Retrieved from https://fod-infobase-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=125000&tScript=0

Professor Comments: "Maybe one day we will have a cricket and horse burger with a side of Cod Tail." You never know :)

SOS 117 - Stakeholder Presentation - Meet Elizabeth "Liz" Spiva!

If you would like to know more about Liz or Fox Run... 

Instagram: @LadyNerdLiz 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foxrunfarmstead/ 

The Lonestead Podcast: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/966-the-lonestead-podcast-70909868/ 

Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/FoxRunFarmstead?ref=shop_sugg

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Grade: 100/100

Professor Comments: As ever, a couple comments on the rubric. This presentation was nicely representative of both your Interview and many of our course themes/concepts. Well done, Kathleen. 

Rubric: 

Slide Count: 5/5 - (no comments)

Time: 5/5 - (no comments)

Presentation and Narration: 25/25 - (no comments)

Graphics & Visuals: 20/20 - Lovely photos! Also quite kind of you to include links so interested folks can find and support her. We need more of these kind of gestures. 

Content: 25/25 - (no comments)

Sources: 10/10 - Very nice! This was one of the best aspects of your presentation, Kathleen. 

APA Citations: 10/10 - (no comments)

SOS 117 - Final Short Answer

How Big Ag is going to kill us before it feeds us.

Industrial Agriculture is big business in the United States. However, the methods used to produce the food consumed by over 321 million people is going to kill our land before it can even hope to feed our exploding population. Advances in farming technology have not made us immune to the disaster waiting to strike if we do not take better care of our soil and encourage more sustainable farming practices within the Big Ag Industrial Complex. It is estimated, by Stanford University, that we are losing about one-inch of top soil every year, mostly due to agricultural farming practices (Verso, 2015). If we are to have any hope of continuing to feed our growing population, we need to start by taking better care of our soil. “Soil is the foundation (of) farm ecosystems; we depend on it for most of our food supply (Agriculture and Ecosystems: Background Reading).” With Climate Change becoming a more urgent problem every year, it is critical that we confront Big Ag on their soil practices, or we risk losing everything.

While the purpose and goals of Big Ag are to provide as much food as possible in as small an area as possible, they do this by damaging the very soil that they are trying to use for crop growth. “The industrial ethic views agriculture as just another part of industrial society, in which commodities are produced at the lowest cost possible (Chase & Grubinger, 2014, p. 59).” Yet, the methods used to produce food commodities are costing us the health of our soil. Norman Borloug’s Green Revolution attempted to create a better way for us to maximize yields in smaller spaces by creating crops that could withstand drought, and grow anywhere, and be immune from disease and pests (The Man Who Tried to Feed the World). “The Green Revolution basically implies that food production is everything. It is the most important thing. And of course, it is extremely important. (…) But as we know now, agriculture is not just about supplying food (Agriculture and Ecosystem Services).” Big Ag must respect the land on which they grow to continue to provide food that feeds all of us.

The Dust Bowl did not happen in a vacuum. Farmers in the Great Plains used modern technology to over-till the soil, churning up over 850 million tons of top soil that simply blew away during the Great Depression due to poor soil management (History Brief: the Dust Bowl). “Soil health is incredibly important in order just to sustain our ability to feed, not only ourselves, but to feed the world (Living Soil Film).” It is absolutely critical that in the 21st century, we start looking closer at our farming practices and create incentives for Big Ag to adopt better soil health practices, or we are dooming ourselves to the possibility that the soil won’t be able to handle humanity’s intense food needs. If we fail, we are going to experience widespread famine as a direct result of not maintaining the soil.

One way we can improve soil health is by using organic matter to enhance the soil, rather than rely on heavy chemicals. “In many areas where The Green Revolution has been successful, the land is losing its value. It’s losing its quality and we have to regenerate the land (Agriculture and Ecosystem Services).” Restoring the land means that we need to restore the natural balance to the land, not by using heavy chemicals, but rather using organic matter and biomes. “If the soil life is health and the bacteria and the fungi can all work, they actually release all the nutrients that are naturally locked up in the soil and make them available as plant food for the next crop (Industrial and Sustainable Farming).”

Monocropping and overtilling are other ways in which soil health is lost. Crop rotation is an easy and simple way to further this goal. Instead of using acres of land to grow a single crop, Big Ag can diversify and start alternating between crops, allowing the soil to regenerate and renew after each growing season. As Darryl Soljan explained, “The Earth was really never designed to be a monoculture, to have just one species or a limited number of species in one place (Industrial and Sustainable Farming).”

It is absolutely imperative that we start convincing Big Ag to take their soil health more seriously or we are going to be faced with another famine equal to or greater than that of the Dust Bowl. If we plan to feed over 9 billion people by 2050, we need to start by taking a closer look at our soil health and nurturing it back to optimum health, both for ourselves, and for the world.




References

• Agriculture and Ecosystem Services (n.d.). [Motion Picture].
• Agriculture and Ecosystems: Background Reading. (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.
• Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.
• History Brief: the Dust Bowl (n.d.). [Motion Picture].
• Industrial and Sustainable Farming (n.d.). [Motion Picture].
• Living Soil Film (n.d.). [Motion Picture].
• The Man Who Tried to Feed the World (n.d.). [Motion Picture].
• Verso, E. (2015, December 09). Topsoil Erosion. Retrieved from Stanford University: http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph240/verso2/#:~:text=%22The%20estimate%20is%20that%20we,30%20to%2040%20times%20faster.

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Grade: 96/100

Professor Comments: A nice way to wrap up the course! Very best of luck with whatever comes next for you, and wishing you a wonderful holiday season! 

SOS 117 - Stakeholder Interview

My Stakeholder interviewee is Elizabeth “Liz” Spiva, owner and sole operator of Fox Run Farmstead, a 10-acre farm in East Texas where she raises cows, goats, chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, and geese. She uses the native vegetation around her land for various reasons including food for herself and her animals, and for her non-food products (like soap and other beauty products). She has developed a sustainable, (non-certified) organic, and ecologically diverse operation with the ultimate goal of becoming completely self-sufficient. She is also a certified nurse who works in a clinic part-time, assists her father on his cattle ranch, and is a full-time double major in Agricultural Sciences and Ranch Management at her local community college.

I selected Liz as my Stakeholder because she is a new farmer with an eco-conscious, sustainable mindset that uses horizontal relationships with customers and other farmers to sell and trade her products (Chase & Grubinger, 2014, p. 61), working on becoming a full-time farmer whose primary source of income and food security will come from the farm. Having the dream to one day become a small-scale sustainable farmer myself with no goals of selling more than I need to break even, choosing instead to farm for self-reliance, Liz was a natural choice to interview.

I created a list of twelve formal questions with multiple parts but used them mostly as a guide during our 2-hour long video chat. The conversation was very natural and evolved on its own to cover my questions. I sent her the questions ahead of time so she could prepare, but it ended up just being a friendly conversation about her, her life, and farming, which I really enjoyed.

My first question asked about the history of the farm and her background with regards to farming. With Liz being a new farmer, having just started Fox Run within the last two years, I felt it was important to find out how she ended up deciding to become a farmer full-time. Liz explained that she’d developed a passion for living off the land at a very young age so it was natural for her to transition from city life in California to rural East Texas, and that in doing so, it ignited her passion for becoming completely self-reliant. Her family has a history of urban homestead farming, “instilling the pioneer spirit” in her while living in California. Her dad has also become a new farmer, taking over operations of a mid-sized cattle ranch that is quickly expanding, and teaching her how to manage cattle in addition to her schooling.

I had to ask what made her decide to farm and what were her goals. She explained that, once she was on her own as an adult, farming became her means of healing. Starting Fox Run enabled her to apply the visions in her head into practical reality, deviating from traditional farming methods in her own way, and developing her own individual sense of purpose through farming. Though she still works as a nurse as a source of income while she builds up the farm (which Chase and Grubinger (2014) mention as common among new farmers), she spoke a lot about the differences between working with people and animals, mostly about how working with people can be draining, while working the farm gives her a real sense of purpose in the world. Chase and Grubinger talk about new farmers “simply start growing crops or raising animals and let their markets evolve (p.206).” This is basically what Liz is doing. Though she wants to keep it small and self-sufficient, primarily as a source of food for herself, she is also still navigating the marketing of her goods and services, figuring out what sells, to whom it sells, and what doesn’t. I asked if she ever plans to become certified organic, which she said wasn’t one of her goals, since she doesn’t plan to sell to the public. She also said that she doesn’t ever plan to try to compete with Big Ag because her focus is primarily on being self-sustaining and trying to compete with Big Ag would force her to deviate from her vision of the farm.

We talked about some of the challenges and rewards about working the farm, as well as discussing the practical matters involved and how that has affected her vision. She spoke about how bookkeeping and time management are some of her biggest struggles but that being able to create her own little slice of paradise in the middle of nowhere has really impacted her overall well-being. Between all of her obligations, I wondered where she found the time to manage everything. She joked that she doesn’t date or watch TV anymore, “So I have a lot of free time.” She also spoke about how having a strict routine has been critical. Liz said that she can just zone out and think about her classwork while performing her tasks from muscle memory.

I asked for the current head count of her animals and her plans for expansion, if she even had any. Right now, she has 4 beef cattle calves, 20 goats (with 4 of them pregnant), 46 chickens, 7 geese, a dozen ducks, a dozen guinea fowl, “and two squirrels that keep coming around to rob the chicken feeder.” She also has two dogs (Deeks and Katie), two housecats (Mischa and Purrcival), and her bottle baby, a Nigerian Dwarf goat named Navi. She surprised me by telling me that expansion is actually not one of her goals, and that she’s actively looking to reduce her head count to better afford her more time to devote to the restoration of the land and effectiveness as a farmer. I was curious how she manages so many animals and found out that most of her animals are completely free range. She’s trained the chickens to roost at night, the guinea fowl hang out in the trees or go into the coop when the weather is bad, and there are dog kennels out for the geese and ducks. But by and large, except for the property fences, her animals just go wherever they want. This could potentially cause a problem as she lives near a waterway, and her animals all have free access to it. The possibility that there could be too much animal waste and fertilizer in the water, creating threats to marine wildlife and even her own fowl (pp. 92-93) is a definite issue. We didn’t discuss this in this conversation, but I think that if the waterway started to be affected, it would affect her own flocks, and Liz would be the first one to put up fencing to keep the animals out, alleviating at least some of the problem. She’s already mentioned to me that she’s hyper-aware of the impact on the waterway, so at least she’s keeping an eye on it.

Then we talked about the agriculture, both her animal agriculture business and her utilization of native vegetation. It turns out that her biggest challenge with animal agriculture on such a small scale was deciding not to sell food products to the public at large. She went into great detail about the high cost of processing and selling animal products but has enough of a close relationship with a few customers that she’s been able to exploit some loopholes to sell them processed meat and dairy. Most of her farm customers are either new farmers themselves, or seasoned homesteaders who invest in the farm for mutual gain (as in the case of one customer who gave her two free goats, intending that, when one came of age, she would slaughter and process it for them). “Social capital goes a long way,” she said to me. Her biggest moneymaker is selling livestock outright, which was also a surprise. When she was unemployed in the spring, she said she made enough by selling the animals to keep her farm afloat for a little while. Coupled with the money she makes selling her quilts and soap, she was able to break even until she could find new employment. When it comes to the use of natural vegetation, she went on a rant about pesticides in your food and commented that she doesn’t need to go to the store when she has violet greens and curly dock in her backyard for a salad. I asked her how that started, and she commented that she turned to foraging as a way to stay off of social media and overstimulation. It has become one of her favorite tasks, saying, “What can I say, picking flowers makes me happy.”

She discussed plans to install a vegetable garden in Spring to lessen her personal food costs, so that more money can be diverted back into the farm, but says the hardest part is setting up the fencing to keep the goats out. She currently grows brassicas (mostly turnips and mustard greens) and clover with the native grass that the cows pasture on, using a homemade fertilizer pellet invented by her grandfather, and other native vegetation as a way to fertilize the ground without contaminating the nearby waterway, but doesn’t plan to grow crops specifically for the animals beyond what she already has growing and will plant for herself. To her, this is a waste of natural resources to farm crops over existing edible vegetation. She also went into great detail about her plans to acquire a better vehicle to help her handle the intense demands of farming in a rural area.

That led to a discussion on her non-food items. She talked about how she was inspired to create the deliciously moisturizing goat milk soap working as a nurse. Sadly, they are her lowest sellers, but her beautiful, heirloom quality quilts (which she has been making for almost 20 years now), usually made from thrifted or scrap fabric, are her biggest sellers, and almost all done by commission. She talked about how marketing has been a huge challenge for her, mainly because of time constraints, so much of her sales have been by word of mouth. She knows she’ll have to expand on that and plans to start selling at farmer’s markets in the future, as well as online, but right now, her current methods of sale are paying the bills while she focuses on other aspects of her life, so she’s in no rush.

For my last question, I had to cover the tech arena. For a 21st century farm, Liz likes running it the old-fashioned way, using electrified fencing, incubators, and heat lamps, but preferring to be as low tech as possible. She still vaccinates her animals and utilizes antibiotics when the goats injure themselves. But she spent a good while explaining to me the various herbal remedies that you can use for minor problems.

In our almost 2-hour long conversation, I learned a lot more about Liz, about small scale farming and homesteading, holistic remedies for everything from acne and psoriasis to poor blood circulation, intestinal parasites, and mild infections, and especially about goats. Liz discussed many of the challenges listed in our textbook’s chapter on new farmers, having inherited the land, but also being a first-generation farmer who is still learning the ropes. She has worked out some mutually beneficial horizontal relationships with other farmers and is trying to find a niche for her commodities for the larger market. Right now, though, the sense of pride she has in her farm, and the complete transparency she has with her customers is enough to keep the farm breaking even, which she considers a success.



References 

Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England. 

Spiva, E. M. (2020, 11 22). Owner of Fox Run Farmstead. (K. J. Kagan, Interviewer)

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Grade: 96/100

Comments: 

Me (to the professor) - Had a hard time chopping this down to 3 pages. Sorry it's late. I had two finals yesterday and hadn't slept. 

Professor (to me) - Yes, synthesis can be quite challenging! But such a wonderful skill to possess (and practice). As ever, a few comments on the rubric. 

Rubric: 

Page Count: 5/5 - (no comments)

Interview Questions: 20/20 - Almost always best to let conversations (especially interviews) 'evolve' naturally. Reading this, it sounds like you guys had a wonderful conversation & covered a lot of ground. 

Introduction: 15/15 - (no comments)

What did you learn?: 20/20 - (no comments)

Sustainability Issues: 26/30 - Certainly not a superficial discussion! However, a few more connections to course materials would have strengthened this. You guys touched on so many of the topics that we have covered in class! 

Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation: 5/5 - (no comments)

APA Citations: 5/5 - (no comments)

SOS 117 - Field Trip #3: Queen Creek Olive Mill

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Grade: 98/100

Professor Comments: Nicely done, Kathleen. As ever, a few comments on the rubric. 

Rubric: 

Location: 10/10 - Such a charming place to feature for your last Field Trip Report. It is a "hidden gem," isn't it? 

Introduction: 10/10 - (no comments)

Virtual Tour: 10/10 - (no comments) 

Sustainability Issues: 10/10 - (no comments)

Solution Strategies: 10/10 - (no comments)

Sufficiency vs Gaps, re: Solution Strategies: 10/10 - Discussion throughout your presentation was focused and nuanced, with insightful commentary, Kathleen. 

Sources: 10/10 - Excellent connections to/with/between course materials (from the entire course!). 

APA Style Citations: 10/10 - (no comments)

Presentation & Narration: 18/20 - I appreciate the way you structured both this (and your last presentation) with almost 'two' slide designs to guide the presentation. For this one, the one drawback was the black text on the gray background. It was very difficult to read (and would be more so for folks who are visually impaired). White text may have provided more contrast and readability. 

SOS 117 - Vision for a Sustainable Future Assignment

Wasting food is killing our planet and we need both technological, political, and social reform before we do irreparable damage to our home. We need governmental involvement in determining “sell by” dates to regulate the industry and prevent big business from setting all the rules. We need technology to make sure our food is better handled at every step so we need fewer “best by” dates. We need a social campaign to encourage people to waste less and eat ugly food. Nearly 1/3 of all food produced is wasted because it doesn’t meet arbitrary standards. The ugly food can be given to food banks. If we establish food waste disposal stations, Manhattan food waste can be turned into biomatter for a farm upstate. We need to take a closer look at how food waste is aggravating climate change and how we impact that, or we will soon have none to eat on our plates.

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Grade: 100/100

Professor Comments: (none; see rubric) 

Rubric: 

Word Count: 10/10 - (no comments) 

Vision Paragraph: 80/80 - Food waste feels quite actionable, doesn't it? Something to literally get our hands (and heads) around. So much room for positive movement here! 

Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation: 10/10 - (no comments) 

SOS 117 - Field Trip #2 Presentation: Shamrock Farms

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Grade: 100/100

Professor Comments: Great work on this, Kathleen! I left you a few comments on the rubric. 

Rubric: 

Location: 10/10 - So glad that you were able to get this interview! Worth the wait (and all the effort!). :) 

Introduction: 10/10 - (no comments)

Virtual Tour: 1010 - (no comments)

Sustainability Issues: 10/10 - (no comments)

Solution Strategies: 10/10 - (no comments)

Sufficiency vs Gaps, re: Solution Strategies: 10/10 - (no comments)

Sources: 10/10 - Kathleen, your presentation shone in this respect! Your connections to/with/between course concepts/materials were exemplary! I was impressed. 

APA Style Citations: 10/10 - (no comments) 

Presentation & Narration: 10/10 - I did note the not to be copied/redistributed. :) Glad that you added that in there! If you'd like, now that I've graded it, you may "un-share" it so that it will remain in your personal purview, and not "public" on the class VoiceThread forum. 

SOS 117 - Food Environment & Food Waste Assignment

               I grew up as the only biological child of a young single mother.  We were very poor.  My mother was barely 20 when she gave birth to me.  No college degree, no job at the time, and no husband to take care of her.  My parents were forced into marriage when my mother was 6 months pregnant with me but divorced shortly after.  Living on opposite ends of the country, I never knew my father.  When my mother had me, she was one of 3 kids still living with my grandparents.  Shortly after I was born, she took off and left me with them, knowing she couldn’t take care of me.  I was always fed.  I don’t remember going to bed hungry while living with my grandparents.  It took me until I was an adult to recognize the agonizing fight my grandparents had just to keep food on the table.  And it took me until this unit to realize just how much poverty affected their food choices. There was always food, but it was almost always boxed, canned, or frozen.  Very rarely did I eat anything fresh growing up. 

               When I was 9, my mother managed to secure government housing, welfare, and food stamps to help her raise me.  That is when the food insecurity started.  Utilizing the food stamp program that was established in 1939 by The Farm Bill (What is the Farm Bill and Why Does it Matter?, 2018, 5:17), the National School Lunch Program, established in 1946 as an expansion of The Farm Bill to further curb the widespread hunger (Hunger and Food Security (Background Reading), p. 2), and local food banks, she managed to scrape enough together to keep us afloat.  Even though she would force herself into feeling completely humiliated just to feed me, there were still many nights when I would go to bed hungry and wake up to bare cabinets. I was the 1 in 5 children who had to deal with food insecurity (The Shocking Truth About Food Insecurity, 2016, 1:05). My mother would be humiliated at the grocery store as she pulled out a small checkbook to pay for our groceries, and carefully pulled what looked like monopoly money out, handing it to a cashier as others in the line judged her for buying shelf-stable but nutrient-deficient foods just to feed me. She never told people how bad it got because she was so embarrassed at having to rely on the kindness of others just to survive (6:38). 

My mother eventually started working in a call center, making $10 per hour, ending the government benefits that kept us afloat, and causing the rent on our government townhouse to up to almost unmanageable levels now that she no longer qualified for government assistance, eventually to a point where she could only afford go grocery shopping once a month.  We almost never had fresh produce.  Produce would go bad very quickly so she would rather buy processed foods than waste money on food that would just be thrown out. When bread developed mold, we were told to pick the mold off and eat it anyway.  “It’s just penicillin,” she would say. We made too much for government assistance, and yet not enough to eat regularly.  Our meals were almost always pre-packaged, shelf-stable food, high in salt, high in sugar, and low on nutrients.  My mother worried nightly about the food running out before the next paycheck, and as a child, I became aware that I was eating too much, so I started skipping meals just so we didn’t run out of food and make my mother more sad than she already was.  Once a month, we would order Chinese food and feast for a couple of days, but by the end of the month, the cupboards were bare again, and I was left trying to find something – anything – to calm the roaring hunger in my belly. 

Eventually, my mother turned to drinking just to cope with her feelings of failure (at being unable to keep me fed, sheltered, and clothed) and the deep depression she felt as a result those feelings.  Things got worse with my diet and now I had to deal with a drunk and abusive mother on top of always feeling hungry and worrying constantly about how to feed myself.  She would beat me if I ate too much, used too much butter, if I shared my food with my other (also very poor) friends, and if I “wasted (her) money” by needing to go to the doctor. I developed several medical conditions as a direct result of the malnutrition and my mother wasn’t able to afford the medications that I needed to correct the deficiencies in my diet.  I had started developing problems in school, my grades slipped, I was always tired, and the only real meals I ate were at school, which were still very high in saturated fats and very low on nutrient-dense foods.

“(S)tudies have shown that residents of communities without access to affordable, healthy food options generally have poorer diets and are at higher risk for certain diet-related diseases… (and) surveys suggest that students who eat meals offered through the National School Lunch Program consume higher amounts of fat and sodium, but also lower amounts of added sugars and higher amounts of several key dietary nutrients (including calcium and B vitamins. (Food Environments (Background Reading), pp. 1-2)”

She tried buying more food to combat the malnutrition, rather than pay whatever they wanted to charge her for the medications I needed to combat my malnutrition, but in addition to being still nutrient poor, my deep hunger would cause me to eat most of the extra food within a couple of weeks, leading back to the cycle of food insecurity that kept me malnourished in the first place.  She would almost never bring in fresh produce because it was always more expensive than buying a processed food with added nutrients.  The only times I ate a meal that was even close to being appropriate for my age group were the times I ate at school (I participated in both the School Breakfast Program and the School Lunch Program), and the snacks I would have at daycare.  And even then, I still didn’t eat much in the way of fruits or vegetables, mainly because I was either never exposed to them (specifically in the case of the kiwi I first tried in 5^th grade) or I just didn’t have the taste for them (as argued in “Diet and Influences on Food Choice”), referring the pizza to the carrot sticks, the nachos to the salads, and so on. 

As a result of living in such deep poverty, I was taught not to waste a single food item.  What others would deem as worthless and toss in the trash, I was beaten for trying to dispose of.  Wilted lettuce covered in brown spots was still served as a makeshift salad or on a sandwich. If bread molded, the molded part was pulled out and the bread was still eaten.  Expiration dates were completely ignored, even when it came to things like meat and dairy.  Unless it was curdled or the can was bulging, it was still good.  “You could just cook off all of the bacteria from (expired) meat.”  The only time we were allowed to throw out “perfectly good food” was if it was clear that it couldn’t be saved (curdled milk being the primary example), or had developed so much mold that you couldn’t just scrape it off and, even then, sometimes she would still serve it. 

At 14, I started taking babysitting jobs that led to various other odd jobs to help her buy groceries and keep the lights turned on.  She started drinking more now that there was a bit more cash flow, and I started eating whatever I could afford that didn’t taste like molded bread.  I didn’t have the concept of eating fresh food because I almost never had it growing up, and I knew that if I tried to buy things that I couldn’t hide, I would be beaten for going behind her back to feed myself, proving that she was incapable of doing it herself.  It was either shelf-stable food from a box or can, or fast food when we could afford it.  But when I would buy my own groceries – mostly ramen, snacks, and other shelf stable things I could safely tuck away in the drawers under my bed – she would eventually find it, and I would get beaten for hiding food instead.  Sometimes, she would take all of my food and give it to the neighbors.  Sometimes, she would just beat me, and take the rest of my money out of my wallet so that she could buy more alcohol. 

I went to college out of state on a full scholarship that included a meal plan at the cafeteria, which was – for the first time in my life – a period when I never worried about where my next meal would come from.  I had access to fresh fruit and vegetables.  I was able to eat not just once but four times a day.  I didn’t know how to handle it. Most of the time, I opted for food that resembled most like what I had grown up on, prioritizing taste over nutrition (Diet and Influences on Food Choice, p. 3)

I married young, to a man in the military, and, still not knowing how to properly feed myself without a box or a can, we defaulted to fast food and shelf stable or canned meals.  Then we divorced and I lived on my own for almost a decade on a pittance salary, being laid off time and time again, with many months of unemployment and no care from the government.  At one point, I was homeless and living out of my car while still making $14 an hour at a full-time job because I simply couldn’t afford to acquire an apartment. I made too much to qualify for social programs, but still didn’t have enough to even eat a fresh apple once a month.  So back to the shelf-stable, nutrient poor diet I had only ever known growing up, and the many days of going to bed hungry because I couldn’t afford to feed myself.  If the government and social programs are supposed to be “a hand up, not a hand out (The Shocking Truth About Food Insecurity, 2016, 11:22)” they certainly didn’t give me any hands up.  I even resorted to food banks, which was a largely humiliating experience, no matter how friendly the people were to me. 

When I met my husband, I was finally introduced to a nutritious and balanced meal made with fresh ingredients, as he came from a family that had only temporarily experienced poverty but worked very quickly into affluence.  I don’t think he’s ever had to worry about where his next meal will come from.  And, for a couple of years, I never worried about where my next meal would come from either, knowing that we had enough money to buy properly nutritious, fresh food, or that we would have enough money to order out, something that had become somewhat of a delicacy to me, as I only ever got take-out on rare occasions, despite having an affinity for high calorie but nutrient deficient foods. 

And then I got sick.  Very sick.  So sick that I had to quit my decent paying job and start fighting the government for assistance, which they never gave.  We sank right back into poverty, and the inability to throw out food resumed with a vengeance.  I was absolutely terrified of throwing things out and often let them sit in the fridge for days, saved for times when the cupboards would be bare, fully prepared to eat food that had rotted or developed freezer burn just to stave off the hunger pains that had – by that point – become so familiar to me, until my husband would throw them out for me, causing me massive panic attacks and flashbacks to my childhood that would leave me sobbing. 

Yet, as I watched and read this week’s discussions on food insecurity and waste, I found myself thinking about how my mother started dumpster diving shortly after I left for college, just so she’d have enough money for booze and rent, since she now only had to feed herself and she didn’t mind eating food that had gone bad.  She called herself a “freegan,” meaning that she would hop into grocery store dumpsters and pick out food they had thrown away just because the store knew nobody would buy a yogurt that was 6 days until its “sell by” date, even if it would still be good for a while and just need a stirring to mix the yogurt back together, as described in the video “Taste the Waste (3:26)”  To be quite frank, although I grew up in a home where “best before” and “sell by” dates were merely recommendations (and that not only applied to food but to medications as well), I was pleased to learn that these really are arbitrary dates established by CEOs rather than scientists, and that my mother was right when she said that it was merely a marketing tactic designed to make you spend more money.

For most of her life, she not only struggled with poverty as a military brat, and later as a single mom on welfare, but also with eating disorders (which is why she never minded going to bed with only booze in her stomach). She became obese when I was in middle school as a result of those high calorie, high sugar, and low nutrient foods, described in “Diets and Influences on Food Choice (p.3).”  When I was in my teens, she developed hypertension as a result of her diet, and was told to make adjustments to her diet, but never did.  She had become so used to living on poverty foods, that when I tried to show her how to prepare mashed potatoes from scratch, she waved me off and told me that instant (shelf-stable) was just as good.  At that point, poverty foods had become her preferred taste.  Fruit goes bad within a few weeks.  It will never survive from one month to the next.  So highly-processed, shelf-stable foods became her preference, because they were cheap, quick and easy, and they tasted like foods she had grown up with, tastes that she preferred. “American consumers prioritize taste, cost, nutrition, and convenience (in that order) when making food choices (Diet and Influences on Food Choice, p. 3)  My mother has never eaten a bell pepper in her life.  She has never eaten mushrooms, olives, fish, avocados, or onions either.  She grew up without access to these foods in their purest form so she never acquired a taste for them (she would call them “crawlies”), and because she never ate them, neither did I.  I grew up on TV dinners, boxed meals, vegetables out of a can (instead of fresh or even frozen), and fast food.  It wasn’t until I met my husband and broke the cycle of poverty that I started shopping more in the produce section than the middle aisles.  I had to break out of one food environment and immerse in another just to see, with eyes wide open, how damaging it was to raise a child on TV dinners, McDonalds, and Hamburger Helper.

I’m still not okay with wasting as much food as we do.  Just last week, we threw away a brown head of romaine lettuce because my husband had bought a new one to replace it for his sandwiches.  The entire time I was watching “Taste the Waste,” I kept thinking about that head of lettuce, and how my mother would have beaten me if I had thrown it out instead of just cutting the brown parts off and eating it anyway.  She hated food waste.  To her, every piece of food thrown away represented a dollar amount that she was now literally throwing away because it wasn’t eaten, and when you’re in poverty, every penny matters.  She would have lost her mind at finding out that the average household throws away about 100kg (or about 220 pounds) of edible food per year (Taste the Waste, 2010, 32:18).  Like the dumpster divers shown in that same video, my mother became someone who would routinely dive into grocery store dumpsters and sift through layers and layers of thrown away food to fill her fridge for the week because grocery stores are just wasteful.

In our home, there is very little waste.  Definitely not 200 pounds of it a year.  Because I lived in such abject povery for nearly 30 years of my life, literally the subject of the “Food Insecurity” video, I know that wilted celery still can get thrown into a crock pot for either a soup or a roast. I know I can cut off the bad parts of an apple or potato, and eat the edible parts.  Dried herbs can last for years beyond their “best before” dates.  When the sour cream starts to separate, we simply stir it and use it anyway.  I think the only thing we won’t eat past its shelf life is fish, and that’s primarily because my husband eats it raw.  Normally, however, fish never makes it more than 24 hours in our home without being eaten. 

Food environments are where the tastebuds begin.  A home with a family that eats a lot of fast food is going to end up with children who eat a lot of fast food.  No matter how many times we preach the gospel of fresh and healthy, there are always going to be people who just don’t care.  When you grow up as I did, you end up having a hard time adapting to new foods.  I think back on how much I resisted kiwi fruit as a child or asparagus as an adult and how obsessed I am with them now.  When you grow up on Tang and Hamburger Helper, you develop a taste for it. And since “Americans, on average, consume 68% of theur total calories from foods prepared at home (Food Environments (Background Reading), p. 1),” I think it’s critical that we start at home, not just by preaching the gospel of healthy eating but by actually modeling it.  As a grown woman, I now know that a bag of potatoes can net me more mashed potatoes than a box of “potato flakes” for less cost and the fresh potatoes have much more nutrients too.  I now know that bell peppers have an exceptionally large amount of vitamin C in them.  I heard one nutritionist say they have more vitamin C than a glass of orange juice.  But I never ate them until I was an adult because it wasn’t modeled in my home. 

I also really like the idea of farmers leaving their “leftovers” in the fields for people to pick, and think this is a wonderfully sustainable idea for dealing with the 50% of product that never makes it to market because it’s too small, the wrong color, has a dent, or whatever superficial reason the market has against buying dented potatoes.  My aunt lives in a rural part of Israel, close to a very large farm that’s been up and running for almost a century now.  When the farmer makes his harvests, he takes all the things that are sellable at market and leaves everything else in the fields for people to pick up, like the man collecting potatoes from the field at the beginning of “Taste the Waste.”  My aunt and her husband take several bags every harvest just to collect the items he can’t sell because they’re not “perfect” enough for the store.  She has shown me pictures of purple carrots the size of my femur that had to be left behind because they weren’t the right color or size to sell at market.  I am a huge fan of ugly food and believe that ugly food can save our world from starvation if we just get consumers used to the idea that food does not always come out picture perfect.  A head of cabbage with a split down the middle is still perfectly good for coleslaw or cabbage soup!  It’s a waste to toss it back just because it’s not pretty enough for market. 

CSA’s are a great idea to get this project started but I honestly feel like ugly food (and food waste in general) needs a good PR rep and a commercial or three.  Are CSAs useful and amazing?  Of course.  But I feel like we need to adapt this to the market as well and start working on the minds of the average consumer, not just the health-conscious.  In last week’s video, “Cappuccino Trail: The Global Economy in a Cup,” they show a young woman staring at a carton of (out of season) strawberries in a market. She makes several comments about how ripe they look, how pretty they look, and how tempted she is to buy them just because they match her definition of what a strawberry SHOULD look like.  But as someone who was taken to a U-Pick strawberry field many times as a kid (and ate half of my lane in strawberries every time I went), I can tell you that a strawberry picked fresh in the field is so much tastier than the bruised and bland ones shipped in for the off season, just because someone wants strawberry shortcake in January.  Do I still buy strawerries at the store?  Yes. I will admit to that.  But I am also inordinarily picky about my little carton of berries.  Having had freshly grown strawberries, straight from the field, at the peak of flavor, those bland cartons at the store just gotta go.  We in the Western World need to start thinking more seasonally, and less conveniently.  As the caterer said in “The Battle to Get on Your Plate,”:

“Let me show you what I can do with butternut squash instead.”

References

Cappuccino Trail: The Global Economy in a Cup (2001). [Motion Picture]. Films for the Humanities & Sciences.

Diet and Influences on Food Choice. (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Food Environments (Background Reading). (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Food Savers (2013). [Motion Picture]. Infobase. Retrieved from https://digital-films-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=56521

Hunger and Food Security (Background Reading). (n.d.). In Teaching the Food System. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

Taste the Waste (2010). [Motion Picture]. Infobase. Retrieved from https://digital-films-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=56522

The Battle to Get on Your Plate: High Stakes in The Food Industry (2009). [Motion Picture].

The Shocking Truth About Food Insecurity (2016). [Motion Picture]. TEDxWilmingtonWomen. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HakCAdPrlms&feature=youtu.be

What is the Farm Bill and Why Does it Matter? (2018). [Motion Picture]. Food & Environment Reporting Network. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4mQyUOE_z0

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Grade: 100/100

Professor comments: This was an emotionally heavy read, Kathleen, but I thank you for writing it (and sharing it with me). You wrote well and honestly. And I wish that your classmates could read it. To understand that folks like you are "real" (if that makes sense); that this (all of this) isn't theoretical or "academic." And that what we're talking about (learning, doing, etc.) matters; it really does. Maybe more than we realize. And much more than maybe we even understand. So glad that you're here. 

SOS 117 - Media Analysis 3: Fair Trade Coffee

References

Browning, D. (2020, October 19). How Blockchain Benefits the Coffee Supply Chain. Retrieved from SupplyChainBrain: https://www.supplychainbrain.com/blogs/1-think-tank/post/32057-how-blockchain-benefits-the-coffee-supply-chain

Duncombe, C. (2020, October 5). Local Coffee Roaster Say Fairtrade Isn't Always the Fairest. Retrieved from Westword: https://www.westword.com/restaurants/fairtrade-corvus-coffee-roasters-unfair-beans-11813673

Green, M. (2020, September 23). Fair Trade USA Launches #JustOneCup Campaign as Coffee Prices Reach 13-Year Low. Retrieved from Food Ingredients 1st: https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/fair-trade-usa-launches-justonecup-campaign-as-coffee-prices-reach-13-year-low.html

Greenwood, D. (2020, June 15). Fair Trade Coffee Embraced Locally. Retrieved from Mankato Free Press: https://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/local_news/fair-trade-coffee-embraced-locally/article_a875a8e2-ab2d-11ea-9a74-5b87b501b14b.html

How Fairtrade Protects Company Supply Chains - And Brands Reputations. (2020, October 1). Retrieved from Sustainable Brands: https://sustainablebrands.com/read/supply-chain/how-fairtrade-protects-company-supply-chains-and-brand-reputations

Martinko, K. (200, July 10). COVID-19 Is Forcing More Children Into Labor. Retrieved from Treehugger: https://www.treehugger.com/covid-19-is-forcing-more-children-into-labor-5070811

 

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Grade: 100/100

Professor Comments: Nice work on this, Kathleen. A few comments on the rubric, as always. 

Rubric Comments: 

Timeliness: 5/5 - Thoughtful of you to provide your submission in multiple formats.
Media Sources: 15/15 (no comments)
Depth of Discussion: 10/10 - Nicely done in this respect. 
Hyperlinks: 10/10 (no comments)
Design and Presentation: 10/10 - Lovely, Kathleen. Just like your last one, this had the "look" of an online piece, but even more polished and professional in this iteration. The color scheme/blocking was quite nice. If you ever have another class with assignments like this, you might consider changing the "color" of the hyperlinks from the classic blue to something that reflects that your selected color scheme. It will lend a more cohesive feel. 
Ease of Reading: 10/10 - Nicely done here, too. 
Graphics/Visuals: 10/10 - The children workers was particularly well-selected. 
Peer Reply #1: 10/10 - Fascinating! I did not know this tidbit about the music selections. Thank you for sharing. I may time my future visits to correspond to my music preferences :) 
Peer Reply #2: 10/10 - Lots of "vegan" foods wouldn't necessarily qualify as "healthy," would they? 
Peer Reply #3: 10/10 - I'm sure you made (cohort's) day! :) 

SOS 117 - Designing a Food Label Assignment

               For this purpose of this assignment, I chose to focus on the locavore movement as it pertains to the State of Arizona. As a land-locked state with a lot of desert in the southern region, it can appear, at first, as if we are unable to grow any crops locally.  But this just isn’t true. According to the University of Arizona, about 36% of our total land area is used for farming, of which there exist over 10,000 farms with an average size of 2,610 acres (A Look at Arizona Agriculture).  The Arizona Department of Agriculture touts that our agriculture industry is worth an estimated $23.3 billion, creating over 138,000 jobs.  We are the third largest producer of fresh produce, and fourth in the nation for the largest area of organic vegetables.  That doesn’t even include our massive cattle operations, which is one of the five C’s of Arizona.  In 2018 alone, Arizona produced 455.7 million pounds of red meat and 4.2 billion pounds of milk (A Guide to Arizona Agriculture).  As the locavore movement gains in steam, I wanted to focus on all of the wonderful foods that can be farmed – and sold – within our borders.  Far beyond just cotton, copper, cattle, citrus, and climate, there are a wealth of foods that can be grown within our borders that would help someone making a new transition towards a more sustainable and local diet.

I created a label that would be easy to recognize by the average Arizona consumer as being a product farmed locally within our borders.  It begins with an outline of the state, embedded with “Arizona” on the southern border for easier recognizability as an Arizona specific product.  As we are “The Grand Canyon State,” I used the words “Canyon State Grown” for the label to distinguish it as a locally grown product, and added in a heart graphic because we are also known as “The Sweetheart State,” since our founding took place on February 14, 1912.  Both of these additions, I feel, make the label stand out and easily recognizable among the gallery of stickers we see printed on products available at the local supermarket.  I made the words red with black shadowing, on a green background to draw in the customer’s eyes, even on a small sticker. 

The goal of the logo is to attract the eye of the consumer at the average supermarket and let them know that this crop was grown here, where they live.  It appeals to locovores because Arizona provides a stunning array of crops beyond the Five C’s, which can enhance pride in the local economy. It tracks food miles better than the fine print on packages of berries farmed in Mexico, it provides the freshest produce because it isn’t being shipped from halfway across the globe, and lets the consumer feel a connection, however small, with the local economy, almost a provider-customer relationship between their product and the farm it came from (Module 5 Lecture: Food & Culture: Non-Nutritional Goals Through Food, 2:30).  They know that this cantaloupe was farmed here (we are currently 2^nd in the nation for cantaloupe, honeydew melon, pistachio, and date production), that the steak they’re eating came from the Town of Gilbert, or that even the roses we grow in this state (which produce 75% of all roses grown nationwide, according to the Department of Agriculture), will be fresher than roses shipped across the continent.  It gives a glimpse into the complex agriculture that exists within our borders without people having to research it, and encourages people who may not have ever considered eating local to try a juicy peach from an “ag in the middle” farm that would otherwise disappear, were it not for the ability to use my label to sell their local food in a values-based supply chain, such as Sprouts (Chase & Grubinger, 2014, p. 62).

That being said, local does not always mean sustainable.  Even though we have a very high number of organic farms, and a local farmer’s market almost every day of the week, we also have a very high level of industrial agriculture.  Yuma is home to the “winter lettuce capital of the world (A Look at Arizona Agriculture).” In recent years, it has come under fire for its use of undocumented migrant labor, poor soil health, dangerous working conditions, and taking shortcuts to produce more lettuce for less cost.  These shortcuts have resulted in deadly outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, and raids by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, leading many commercial farmers to continue their operations shrouded in a veil of secrecy to protect their much needed labor force.  There is rampant use of antibiotics and poor living conditions among many of the cattle farms.  We see monocropping, heavy tilling (which abuses the state average of ½-inch of topsoil that we start with), heavy use of undocumented labor in subpar conditions, poor animal welfare, and a general disregard for the environmental health through the use of heavy pesticides, herbicides, and other such chemicals.  While the focus for the label was to attract the eye of customers within Arizona who would otherwise have no clue where their food came from, or to attract customers looking to keep their dollars closer to home, as it stands, the label itself doesn’t address any of the number of concerns with commercial agriculture within the state, nor does it stop the state from exporting over $4.2 billion worth of crops to over 70 different countries (A Guide to Arizona Agriculture).  The only thing the customer knows when initially looking at my label is that it was produced within the borders of the state.  There would have to be a barrage of other stickers and logos in order to know anything more without having to research it.

Upon reviewing the extensive list of labels on the Ecolabel Index (Ecolabel Index, n.d.), the label that stood out most to me was the “Certified Naturally Grown” label.  This is another label, like mine, that leaves a lot to the imagination.  Prior to looking at their website, I thought to myself, “what does ‘Naturally Grown’ mean?” I can make assumptions.  Perhaps it is more in line with the USDA Certified Organic label and there is a rigorous process to become certified.  But perhaps not.  Could a backyard farmer become “certified naturally grown”? Would the cotton farmers in San Tan Valley be “naturally grown” since it seems that they don’t really use heavy pesticides or herbicides, just (in my belief) GMO seeds?  What is and isn’t natural?  Who defines it?  Vagueness like this is at the crux of my own label.  Yes, it was grown in Arizona.  That we can feel good about.  Our dollar helped a local farmer and kept money in the local economy.  But under what conditions?  What kind of farmer?  Would we still feel good about a steak from the Town of Gilbert if we knew that the steak spent all of its life eating corn from a bucket, wading through inches of mud and feces?  Or would we want a cow grazing on pastures in a smaller and more sustainable environment?  Would we still eat that Yuma lettuce if we knew that it was picked by undocumented migrant workers from Mexico who lived 6 to a room with no running water?  Or would we want to know that the lettuce was rotated to protect soil health and picked by volunteers, interns, and properly compensated workers?  What does “local” mean?  What does “natural” mean? 

A deep dive into the “Certified Naturally Grown” website (Certified Naturally Grown, n.d.) shows a list of criteria that are more complex than those for the USDA Organic label.  In addition to all of the requirements for the USDA Organic sticker, CNG requires that livestock have stronger living conditions, access to pasture, and feed requirements.  The produce requirements explicitly lay out how the soil must be managed, the land requirements needed, crop rotation, details on how to handle pests and weeds… all topics that are only briefly mentioned in the USDA Organic seal. 

In my dream world, my sticker would require much of the same tight regulations as the “Certified Naturally Grown” or USDA Organic badges of honor, but they would also have to be farmed in Arizona to benefit a farmer who lives in this state.  I would require third-party, random inspections, because I simply don’t trust the government to do their job up to my standards.  They would have to verify the following criteria: The crop would have to be sustainable, and the soil maintained, but could be made from GMO seeds or through “The Normal Borlaug Method” (of expedited and specifically engineered generational modifications).  Livestock would have to be treated humanely, both while they are alive and leading up to their slaughter, including allowing them grazing room and the absence of antibiotics to fatten them up or keeping them pregnant while separating them from their calves for their milk supply.  Workers would have to be compensated appropriately (whether that be through an actual paycheck, or in exchange for room, board, and experience, depending on the type of worker).  There would have to be strict labor laws in place to ensure that workers are treated just as well as the cows.  

While I personally don’t mind undocumented migrant labor (I have several friends who are either DACA recipients or undocumented) and do not believe them to be the social ill that President Trump thinks they are (as they are taxed for benefits they can never receive), I would also prefer to have them treated the same way that we would treat local laborers.  No use of heavy chemicals that could give them cancer, no 14-hour days of back breaking labor without even so much as a bathroom break, no sleeping in shacks, 6 people deep, without access to running water and heat/air conditioning.  I prefer to see migrant laborers as human beings who are just trying to help their families back home.  To me, that’s honest work. And honest work is honest work, whether you are a United States Citizen, here on an H-2A Guest Worker Visa, or just walked hundreds of miles through life-threatening conditions with the dream of making a few dollars to send your children to school so they don’t have to do the same thing you do. I know this is a pipe dream, but maybe one day we will have a better path to citizenship for these migrant workers who have been building our great nation since before the founding.  So, in that way, I would welcome and shelter undocumented migrant workers by limiting the government’s presence on my farms, while still providing transparency about worker conditions (in line with how the Census just does a head count, not a citizenship count).  Frankly, this is the Arizona way.  As Arizonan’s, we’ve never been too keen on Big Government, and my sticker would reflect that as well.

I know that my label is a bit of a pipe dream unless I plan to start including the sub-par conditions of commercialized farming in Arizona, but my little green sticker would be my foot in the door to making these destructive industries held accountable for their crimes against the environment, the animals, and their workers.  I think that if it were to attract enough locavores and environmentally minded people with a deep dive website like CNG and nationally recognized certifications like the USDA Organic sticker, we could see my little green sticker on everything from hamburger meat and cantaloupe, to roses and wines.  After all, Arizona is home to some of the most nationally competitive farming ventures, and we make good stuff, right here at home.

References

(n.d.). Retrieved from Ecolabel Index: http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ecolabels/

(n.d.). Retrieved from Certified Naturally Grown: https://www.cngfarming.org/

A Guide to Arizona Agriculture. (n.d.). Retrieved from Arizona Department of Agriculture: https://agriculture.az.gov/sites/default/files/AZDA_GuideToAZAg-R5.pdf

A Look at Arizona Agriculture. (n.d.). Retrieved from University of Arizona Cooperative Extension: https://cals.arizona.edu/fps/sites/cals.arizona.edu.fps/files/education/arizona.pdf

Chase, L., & Grubinger, V. (2014). Food, Farms, and Community: Exploring Food Systems. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.

Module 5 Lecture: Food & Culture: Non-Nutritional Goals Through Food (n.d.). [Motion Picture].

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Grade: 98/100

Professor Comments: Nice work on this, Kathleen! I hope you're feeling better today. 

Rubric Comments: 

Food Label/Logo: 40/40 - I appreciated all the little Arizona reinforcing touches throughout your label, Kathleen. 

Question 1: 10/10 - Excellent connections to course materials throughout your assignment! 

Question 2: 10/10 (no comments)

Question 3: 10/10 (no comments) 

Question 4: 10/10 - This section was well-considered. 

Question 5: 8/10 - Your discussion wasn't superficial, to say the least!, but you only touched on one label... one more would have rounded this out nicely. But, you did an excellent job with the label you selected and discussed and researched! 

Question 6: 10/10 - "As Arizonan’s, we’ve never been too keen on Big Government, and my sticker would reflect that as well." I smiled.