Monday, January 25, 2016
Pollan and Potatoes
I really enjoyed this week's Michael Pollan readings, especially The Botony of Desire. The way he structured his investigation of Monsanto was not immediately argumentative against GMOs, although you could definitely see his points. Combining this with the Omnivore's Dilemma and the USDA's Economic Research Report showed a subjective view of growing food compared to a data tool for a more objective perspective.
In the introduction of the Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan hones in on the decisions we need to make in the clean, pre-packaged environment that is the super market. With all these labels such as "vegan," "gluten free," "free-trade," "organic," etc., it can be difficult to know where this pristine vegetable or fruit came from and in what kind of conditions it was grown.
For last weeks reading, I discussed how we tend to obsess over the sterilizing of our our food, and this perspective was reinforced by Pollan's trip to Idaho. His comparison of the large chemically-based farm versus the organic farm was a wonderful illustration of this idea. The first farm he went to had gray, powdered soil that quite literally paled in comparison to the rich brown soil at the organic farm. The ridiculous amount of pesticides and fertilizers farmers are convinced they need to run their operations is astonishing. Even more shocking is that one of these farmers said he does not even eat his own potatoes.
When Pollan noticed this, he said "The difference, I understood, was that this soil was alive." This reminded me of a video shown at the Paris Climate Summit in December that he created with the Center for Food Safety. The video emphasizes that healthy soil is the reason for 95% of what we eat and that healthy soil can store water, increase crop productivity, and can sequester green house gases. When damaged, soil can even release CO2, and so far we have lost 50% of CO2 stocks due to this. Pollan suggests things like composting and using cover crops to enforce healthy soil.
The report managed to tie it all together by discussing what food systems and their technologies are most energy-efficient. what sort of energy source they tend to use, how food prices ad demand have adjusted over time, and what are the food-related energy flows.
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I like that you are choosing to focus on the perceived necessity of chemical fertilizers and pesticides versus the other suitable options. I am currently an intern with the City's TAPP program, and we aim to reduce the amount of pollution entering our local waters. The two biggest issues we attempt to educate the public on are the problems associated with fertilizers and pesticides. The chemicals used in fertilizers and pesticides are extremely damaging to the environment. If only we could convince mega-farmers of this.
ReplyDeleteIt is a compelling analysis that you make. especially when referring back to your topic of over-sterilization, imperfections seem not to be acceptable in the display of our food. To me, it signifies that we are become more and more disconnected to Earth, its ecology, and the importance of its connection with us. By materializing our food, we see it more as a "commodity," and we take measurements of production that do not cooperate with the bigger picture, which is humans working as a whole with other living beings. Soil is a crucial part of our lives. The reason why the Midwest was always so successful for agriculture is because of Mollisols, the soils that inhabit the region and have high levels of organic matter. If corporations and farmers deplete this precious resource, a great portion of our farmlands and crop production will vanish, and severely threaten our food security. This brings important questions that should be asked to our leaders in regards of our future, and if we do not act quickly, the future of our food -and probably the world- might be as empty as a wasteland.
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