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Lawmakers in Vermont are looking to regulate food labels so customers can know which products are made from genetically modified crops, but agricultural giants Monsanto say they will sue if the state follows through.
A rice enriched with beta-carotene promises to boost the health of poor children around the world. But critics say golden rice is also a clever PR move for a biotech industry driven by profits, not humanitarianism.
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Seth Dixon
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TED Talks Western countries throw out nearly half of their food, not because it’s inedible -- but because it doesn’t look appealing. Tristram Stuart delves into the shocking data of wasted food, calling for a more responsible use of global resources.
No one should be surprised that more developed societies are more wasteful societies. It is not just personal wasting of food at the house and restaurants that are the problem. Perfectly edible food is thrown out due to size (smaller than standards but perfectly normal), cosmetics (Bananas that are shaped 'funny') and costumer preference (discarded bread crust). This is an intriguing perpective on our consumptive culture, but it also is helpful in framing issues such as sustainability and human and environmental interactions in a technologically advanced societies that are often removed form the land where the food they eat originates.
Tags: food, agriculture, consumption, sustainability, TED, video, unit 5 agriculture.
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Seth Dixon
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Robyn shares her personal story and how it inspired her current path as a "Real Food" evangelist. Grounded in a successful Wall Street career that was more i... Robyn authored "The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It." A former Wall Street food industry analyst, Robyn brings insight, compassion and detailed analysis to her research into the impact that the global food system is having on the health of our children. As new proteins are engineered into our food supply to maximize profits for the food industry, childhood food allergies are on the rise. What are the connections between cancer and modern consumption patterns? The correlation is clearly there; is causation also present? How have the economics of agriculture shaped this situation? How will the future economics of agriculture reshape food production?
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Seth Dixon
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Americans eat more meat than almost anyone else in the world, but habits are starting to change. This may be in part because of health and environmental concerns. We explore some of the meat trends and changes in graphs and charts. Often we hear about the dietary impact of meat consumption at the personal scale, but what are the environmental impacts of heavy meat consumption on a global scale? Even more telling than the podcast are the charts and infographics that are connected to this article. Not all meats have the same environmental impact (beef is much less environmentally efficient than chicken, pork or turkey). As globalization has spread, American cultural preferences have changed worldwide taste preferences. As the global population rises, the impact of meat consumption is now a major environmental concern.
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"As we've come to depend on a handful of commercial varieties of fruits and vegetables, thousands of heirloom varieties have disappeared. It's hard to know exactly how many have been lost over the past century, but a study conducted in 1983 by the Rural Advancement Foundation International gave a clue to the scope of the problem. It compared USDA listings of seed varieties sold by commercial U.S. seed houses in 1903 with those in the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory in 1983. The survey, which included 66 crops, found that about 93 percent of the varieties had gone extinct. More up-to-date studies are needed." To show the other side of the issue, include this minor, yet crucial part of the article: "A 30-year-old plant pathologist named Norman Borlaug traveled to Mexico in 1944 to help fight a stem rust epidemic that had caused widespread famine. Crossing different wheat varieties from all over the world, he arrived at a rust-resistant, high-yield hybrid that helped India and Pakistan nearly double their wheat production—and saved a billion people from starvation. This so-called green revolution helped introduce modern industrialized agriculture to the developing world."
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UPDATE: The PBS episode "Food Machine" premiered on April 11th, 2012 on the series "America Revealed." Now the episode is available online. "Over the past century, an American industrial revolution has given rise to the biggest, most productive food machine the world has ever known. In this episode, host Yul Kwon explores how this machine feeds nearly 300 million Americans every day. He discovers engineering marvels we’ve created by putting nature to work and takes a look at the costs of our insatiable appetite on our health and environment. For the first time in human history, less than 2% of the population can feed the other 98%."
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This PBS video segment (2009) is dated, but the issues remain relevant. Brazil has implemented the first sustainable biofuel economy in the world with their copious amounts of sugar that are converted to ethanol. Is this a model for the future or just something that would only work in places with the right geographic qualities? Besides being a topic where the concepts of scale and region matter, the energy, economy environment and geopolitics all play a role in shaping the debate.
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Chef Dan Barber squares off with a dilemma facing many chefs today: how to keep fish on the menu. This is a compelling analysis of the agricultural food system through the case-study of fish farms. If we fish the seas like we clear-cut forests, the biodiversity of the world's waters will be seriously depleted. That has been the economic model for fishing for hundreds of years and it is obviously not sustainable given the growing population and demand for fish. However, not all "sustainable" fish farming businesses are equal, and this TED talk demonstrates some of the best practices to restructure the food industry for the best food and environmental results.
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Hungary has taken a stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize grown with genetically modified seeds. Peru and Hungary have both banned GMOs. What are the reasons that many are critical of GMOs? What should the government's role be in agriculture and food systems? Are bio-tech companies too strong?
For 10 years I had the great privilege to lead the genetic resources program at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, and work... A lengthy clip (I would only show the first 4 minutes with a class) that demonstrates the vast amount of scientific energy focused on agriculture. Unspoken is the vast amount of resources invested in genetically modified organism that is leading to a loss of genetic biodiversity that poses some potential risks for our most important crops.
Via Luigi Guarino
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By adding artificial sweeteners to flavored milk, the dairy industry hopes to boost flagging consumption in schools.
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The disaster underscores the need to diversify our crops. AAG: The drought that has hammered much of the country has clearly illustrated the dangers that come with limited agricultural diversity, writes Macalester College geography professor William G. Moseley in this opinion piece. Federal subsidies have encouraged the growth of corn, but this crop is quite vulnerable to drought, Moseley writes. "A more diverse cropping landscape would mean viable farms, healthier diets and a steadier food system," he writes.
Nearly $1bn was spent last year buying wheat, sorghum and other products for the controversial US 'in-kind' food aid programmes. Over 40 companies sold food aid last year But big agribusinesses are not the only ones winning US food aid contracts. Over 40 companies sold nearly 1.8m tonnes, or $1bn worth, of food aid last year. Some have developed entirely new product lines, specifically to sell as overseas food aid. Others have fought to get their products on the list of eligible commodities, which includes items such as canned pink salmon and dehydrated potato flakes. Didion, a private, family-owned company headquartered in Wisconsin, has developed a special line of corn-based food aid products. Last year it was the government’s top supplier of corn-soy blend, a fortified food of choice for the UN’s World Food Programme. What Crops are being donated? To which countries? From which companies? The answers lie in this interactive feature.
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Not long ago in a supermarket not so far away. Help fight the dark side of the farm. Rate the film, favorite the film, comment the film and subscribe to our ... This is horribly cheesy and from an incredibly biased perspective, but it does embody how many see the organic movement (and is quite entertaining for old Star Wars buffs like me).
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This photoblog will also link you to a full article and video that explains how the American pork industry is supplying China's demand for protein as globalization forces (among others) has led the Chinese consumers to eat 10% more meat than they did just 5 years ago. WHat impact will this have on American agriculture? How to we explain fo the rise in meat demand in China?
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McDonald's, Burger King, and Taco Bell all agreed last week to promise to stop using ammonia-treated meat as more and more people learn that this "pink slime" is an earlier version of their finished product. This meat has been treated with Ammonium Hydroxide, is no longer good enough for our fast food restaurants—but it IS still good enough for our schools (they don't need a PR slogan to sell).
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Americans ate 475 million pounds of tilapia last year, making this once obscure African native the most popular farmed fish in the United States. Industrial farming, human-introduced species, GMOs, outsourcing and environmental impacts are but some of the relevant themes from this video. How are global taste buds reshaping the geographic landscape?
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from Ecology
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Permanent Peoples' Tribunal accuses biotech giants Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, DuPont and BASF of promoting dangerous pesticides including endosulfan, paraquat and neonicotinoids...
The world's major agrochemical companies, Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta, DuPont and BASF, will face a public tribunal in early December accused of systematic human rights violations. As modern agriculture and industry are merging in food production, we need to rethink health and the environment.
Via Athena Drakou
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I hope that you enjoy the content and materials that you find on this website. This represents the best news, materials and resources that I have found that can be used in geography (and other) classrooms.