A Look Back...

This has been a very educational term for me. I think I have learned some very valuable things during this course that I plan to apply to my life. Other things, I have to admit; unfortunately will probably be ignored for that ever present issue of time and convenience. The readings were some of the most interesting ones assigned to me since freshman English where we read Dante’s Inferno (how can a trip through the circles of Hell not be interesting!?). The books provided me with some very eye opening moments, as well as some new insights into food which is something that all of us can relate to. Everyone eats! It’s our “common ground” as Sophie’s blog is so accurately titled. I plan on giving my mom Omnivore’s Dilemma for her birthday/mother’s day (yes, I combine the two… the days are only 3ish apart for her). I think she would really find this interesting and my dad too for that matter since his health is not the greatest. When a person comes into some very important knowledge, they want to share it, and that’s how I feel about the things that I have learned in this class. The readings were definitely my favorite part of the class. It would have probably been the group project, because I was very happy with how our poster came out, but group work proved rather stressful as usual. My group people were all involved; however, I was the only person in my group who made every meeting we scheduled outside of class making me the constant. This meant that at the next group meeting, part of it was spent recapping what went on at the last meeting for the “new” group who could make this one, while knowing that the same thing would take place at the next one because someone else was missing from this one. I understand that scheduling conflicts are a problem; we all have lives outside of school, which makes coordinating group work very difficult. But we did the best we could with the time we had and I think our final product turned out really good. I was not able to make it to the actual farm tour, but I was very involved in everything leading up to that such as generating questions to take to the farmer, and everything after: typing up farmer responses from Casimira’s notes, and writing the text for the poster with the help of Casimira and Iana. I think one of the most challenging aspects of the group work after the group members’ absences and scheduling conflicts, was communicating with farmers, and People’s staff. I tried to set up a tour with 47^th St farms and my calls were not returned, which was a bummer because, as fore mentioned, I REALLY want to be able to go out to at least one farm.

Overall, I feel like I contributed greatly to my group’s project. I was a stable, consistent, member of our group and helped a lot with the poster and the process, and the research into the benefits of local organics and how our poster can help increase interest in locally grown produce.

I roughly documented my hours for this class weekly and was averaging around 12 hours a week for this class. I don’t want to put a whole log of hours, because I feel like it would be redundant and unnecessary to list the hours and things done during those hours because the majority of that time is tied up in reading (I’m a slow reader). I did go to the immigration forum, and would like to point out that I was the only person from our class to go, and spent lots of time meeting outside class with my group members. If I had to give myself a grade, it would be a “B”. I admittedly don’t think I put in the amount of work required for an “A” but do feel like I accomplished a “B” level of work for this class. Thank you for a great term Pedro, I learned a lot!

Assignment 4

During the course of this class we have talked lots about the disconnect people have from their food. People don’t really think beyond the fact that their food is coming from the supermarket. Where is MY food coming from for that matter when I go to Safeway and pick up some broccoli or some lettuce? Where are the soy beans being grown that make up the tofu that I constantly stock my refrigerator with? It’s a very common problem. People, me included, need to start paying attention to where the things we put into our bodies are coming from. In Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes, “When did we get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from?” And it’s true, even if I did decide to only buy foods that I knew where they were coming from; it would be trickier than just that. Therefore, food knowledge is a big problem in this day and age. A co-op like People’s is there to help you know more about the food you are putting into your body, and helping to make sure that that food is relatively healthy and cruelty free. When perusing the produce section at peoples, all the items have the location that they are grown listed on the tag. If the farm that grew the food is local, of which there are many; it too is listed on the tag. For our group project, we want to take this knowledge one step further. We plan to research why eating locally grown organics is important in general, whether that be in terms of the environment, the economy, or health. The knowledge gained will be used to take intelligent, insightful questions to a local farmer and while touring the farm, have a discussion about issues that farmers are facing. We want to learn about the farmer and be able to bring back the knowledge we gained and present it to the People’s customers so that they can receive answers to questions that they may have but lack the time to go straight to the source themselves.

I would expect that there are many reasons why local organics are important with the most important to me personally being health and environment. In an Environmental Sustainability class that I took before, we talked a lot about the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf. The hypoxic environment there kills everything because of the excessive waste, fertilizer, pesticides, and sediments running into the river from all the farms along its banks.

For our presentation at the end of term, we would like to have a poster for possible use in the store that has a picture of the farmer at his farm with some general information about their personal philosophy. Something simple that will serve as an efficient way to try and bring the farmer into the coop to “meet the people” so to speak.

I personally would like to be involved in all aspects of this project. I would like to visit the farms and help with the design of the ad; I want to be as helpful as possible to my group.

I think this project touches on each of the University studies goals. For example, diversity of human experience: we are learning about a farmer which is a very different lifestyle than the majority of us lead. Ethics: there are many ethical issues surrounding local organic foods versus regular non-organic foods from a regular supermarket, which we have discussed in great lengths during the course of this class. Communication: we are planning on providing the communication between the consumers at People’s and the farmers who are growing their food. And finally, critical thinking: I feel like all the things listed before tie back into critical thinking. Looking at two sides of the food issue and finding which side makes more sense.