This weeks topic was packed with a lot of information with a few big topic points. Talking about pesticides, inequality, food justice, and social justice. Some points I’m not sure I exactly agree with, they were a stretch, but there was a lot of interesting points to this article that I learned and found interesting.
There definitely is a large divide in the world of agriculture. Most people see a farmer as a white man rather than any other race or gender. There is still so much large scale farming rather than small local farms. We spray our food with harmful chemicals to prevent pests from eating that produce. There’s honestly a list that probably can go on forever.
One big topic in the article that I found interesting was on page 10 when the author talked about some of the chemicals that have been used on California strawberries. I knew pesticides are harmful to both us and our environment but reading about the actual effects was shocking. These chemicals can literally kill a human and farmers still sprayed them. Activist had a protest using gas masks and dry ice to prove the point of how dangerous these chemicals were which in the end did put a stop of the use of some of these chemicals.
Another point that really interested me was the coalition of Immokalee workers on page 8. Over 1,200 workers were liberated after CIW’s slavery campaign. They had started from a small group of farm workers to improve their community. The fair food program helped protect wages, human labor, and human trafficking.
1 comment:
The use of certain chemicals is certainly one of the most eye-catching issues with the current state of US agriculture. Obviously most of the discussion in this class has a US focus, but a lot of the issues can be seen through other perspectives (like the EU or post-colonial nations). The chemical use problem though seems to me like it's especially bad in America. The EU generally is more stringent in its regulations and many post-colonial nations don't have the wealth to be worrying about overusing chemicals like methyl iodide. I think one of the issues that is easier to campaign on and benefits the most amount of people is trying to change the "Do it now, deal with it later" approach that America uses. Prevention is so much easier to get in place than having to clean up the mess industries made.
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