Unit V Agricultural Land Usage

Unit V, main idea of the unit!

Unit 5

This conveys some important realities about the demographic necessities of agriculture, the economic impact and the cultural differences in agricultural production. As with all long infographics on this site, you can "scroll down" on the image by putting the cursor in the top right-hand corner of the image and sliding on the translucent bar. 

Tags: agriculture, infographic, unit 5 agriculture.

The Industrial Revolution really changed things, but it is hardly an improvement, because so many people are without the benefits of the rich percentage.  People's roles are becoming solid components that are entirely replacable and part of the machine rather than becoming creative- and by creative, I don't just mean artsy.  I think that the Research and Development part of any machine entity is the part that allows it to adapt and modify in order to change for the better and the greater good.  I look at humans as an alien species inhabiting a planet, and I could make the analogy to a college fraternity.   The planet is a mess, people try to make a buck off each other at every given opportunity, and I particularly dislike that the rich people band together like frat brothers, instead of giving less-priveledged persons the opportunity to attain equal status.  I don't think like everyone else, but I do make efforts to partake in realistic activism to cause change for the betterment of all beings- human or not.  I do believe in predestination, and that everything around us is a material and spiritual echo from the dawn of creation, but I also believe that the flaws present today will disappear tomorrow through courses of events where chosen people will alter the formation of the future, for the benefit of all beings.  Right now, with people undertipping pizza delivery men, and not donating the optional dollar at stop and shop, it is the flawed 'today' phase of the timeline, but the Industrial Revolution has made it easier for society to embrace component roles, however replacable or expendable, and that in the end will achieve greater contentment and universal success.

It isn't surprising that the more a country has developed, the more wasteful they are. I just think that we need to change this standard. We can not keep this up if we want to sustain ourselves for centuries to come. If we are going to change our consumption culture, we need to look at why it has become the way it is. Why do we see food as unappealing? This is an interesting video and certaintly makes you think twice about throwing anything away. 

Ted explains it well how we all waste perfectly good food that people would like to eat. Also it was amazing how much food was in the dumpsters that was just a day or week old. That meat could feed hundreds of people that are struggling to eat and all that meet to waste. 

Ted talks about just how wasteful our planet is. How we just ignore the issue and act like it will  not affect us in the future. When he shows you video and pictures of massive piles of the ends of a loaf of bread or all the food that Stop and Shop throws out because it does not "look" good for the customer. How every little bit of help counts you can try to make a little bit of an effort to be less wasteful. We have so much unnecessary waste. Like when he uses the example of how many people throw away the ends of a loaf of bread then he shows the waste of the ends of bread in massive piles it makes you sick. Especially with all of the hungry people in the world we need to be more resourceful.

Its a fact that we need to move towards alternative energy sources. To do so many countries have to evaluate what resources they have that can help provide energy for their population. In Brazil, they have used their physical geography to their advantage and have made a very sustainable biofuel. But this kind of fuel is not as cheap for other countries than it is for Brazil. I think it is important to note how Brazil is using its resource advantages to find a way to produce fuel. In the US we need to find a way to use our geography to overcome reliance on foreign oil. 

When looking at the issue of GMO there is one things that clear... people want to know what food is Genneictly Modified. While most poeple dont read every lable of every food product, it is different when decided how many claories something has versus knowing weather its been genneitcly enginegnered or not. I also think anouther factor why the US hasnt enforced the labeling of GMO is beacuse many companies may be forced out of business and could have a efffects on encomy.

Looking at the issue of GMOs, I think it is important to label the foods that we are consuming. As it is stated over and over in the video, we do have a right to know. If cigarettes are labelled to be dangerous and hazardous to your health, shouldn't we do the same thing with our foods that we eat on a daily basis? I feel that the map that was given in this video was very helpful and exposing. 

Horsemeat showed up in London and the media interviewed many people who were appalled and wondering "how safe IS our meat?"

We now have to 'backtrack' to see where in the marketing loop  in between countries this actually is occurring, and also to see how regulations fell through the 'cracks'.

Why would someone want to do that to a horse? Horses are a great addition to the world because they can come in handy when it comes to pulling cargo and other objects also. Horses are having helped people for hundreds of years. I would go crazy if I found out I was eating horse meet. I am very surprised that those people from Ireland did not find out. There should really be an organization that checks the meet before it goes to supermarkets and other places. 

This website gives instructions on when to plant certain crops according to a zip code...Good link to organic local agriculture.

A good look at what students from around th world are eating...different priorities in the USA.

Can you define the wealth of a country by what's in a lunch box?

Just in time for Industry!

Agribusiness and the demands needed to be met to feed the world

My concern is how safe is bioengineered food?  How has its nutritional content been altered?  Until some of our questions about bioengineered food can be answered by the FDA and other government officials I remain leery about the potential side effects that might occur from eating it and wonder how nutritious it really is.

This article is based on a study done by the Rural Advancement Foundation in 1983. Over the past century, it is hard to know what foods were lost and how many of each. But this study done by RAF gave us some information to solve 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. 93 percent of these crops have gone extinct. That is a huge chunk that could be used as resources. This tree starts off with ten crops on it. The tree included: beet, cabbage, sweet corn, lettuce, muskmelon, peas, radish, squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. In 1903, all these numbers were up, up, up. The lowest starting with beet at 288 ranging up to the highest with lettuce at 497. However, 80 years later in 1983, numbers dropped. The highest then shifted to tomatoes at 79 and the lowest shifted to sweet corn at 12.

From a scientific view point it almost seems like we are making ourselves into specialists in an ecological / dietary way.  Limiting our available food resources and hoping against the odds that we don't suffer the same fate as other specialist species of the past.

Chinese farmers cannot keep with with Chinese demand from pork, so America is stepping in to fill the gap. The globalization of American pork seems like it would benefit American farmers and Chinese consumers, but the environmental cost of raising so many extra pigs on American land must be considered, as well as transportation costs to ship it to China.

We never focus on the goods leaving the United States and being imported to China. American pork is filling the demand in China and because globalization has made it cheap to ship exports, China is responding by eating more pork because it is affordable. This is important in keeping American exporting business afloat. There are plenty of pigs in the US to provide large numbers to foreign countries. I also find it interesting that what Americans would consider a staple of so called "Chinese food" is being exported from the US. 

With Monsanto having such a large political power, this is very interesting tat Hungary took a stand. 

I mentioned this through an allusion in another article, but GMOs and the movements against them perplex me.  I don't think that fossil-fuel burning engines are natural, but many anti GMO people that claim they are bad for the environment leave me completely stunned as to their intolerance for what could possibly  benefit other people.  I feel very much an outsider when I examine many topics of controversy related to GMOs, and I am quite sure that I have consumed them before -- and loved them?  as for the FDA... I don't approve of the FDA.  They like more money coming into their pocket more than bettered well-being of citizens.  When I mentioned to my doctor that I wanted to apply for medical marijuana for a series of conditions that I have following a severe accident, I was told that they refused because it was not fully endorsed, approved, or even allowed by the FDA.  That really pissed me off because I suffer from excruciating pain every day and night of my life.  Could you imagine being a poor person in need of food, and the only viable way of getting food was through the production of GMOs...? and then some pseudo-hippie activists that didn't live through the 1960s trying to be all like, "We don't want anyone to have GMOs!"... I pose that abstractly, because I view most everything with a level of abstraction and distance from the situation, sampling perspectives with which I may empathize or consider.  I keep thinking that this world around us all came from a big bang, with other possible universes before that, and something  before that... and I really can't see Capitalism ever becoming as bad as it is, with such disregard for other people's wellbeing, until I look at today's world.

So many articles about organic or genetically engineered foods are written with someone with a very defined position on the subject (much like abortion, gun control or other controversial topics).  This article is an attempt to separate out the good the bad and the ugly regarding genetically engineered foods.