"Service Learning Reflection 3"

For this service learning experience I helped with the UNC Asheville cook-a-thon on campus. So basically I washed dirty pots and pans from the food that was being prepared. After the pots, pans, and bowls were dry I put them back in their cupboards and racks. So cornbread, chili, and apple crisp were some of the things that were prepared for the cook-a-thon that Friday evening. I think this service learning opportunity enhanced my academic growth. I felt like I was helping in the process of providing food for those who are in need and disadvantaged. I think these service learning opportunities give me a chance to learn more about how many people are negatively affected by a lack of fresh food options. I have learned that the community of Asheville is doing quite a lot for people who live in areas where fresh, healthy food is hard to come by. I haven't been this openly exposed to the different things there are to do to become involved in the fight against hunger in the community. My goals are to stay as active as I can in whatever activities are around the UNC Asheville community and the surrounding area, whether it be helping in gardens or going to soup kitchens and the like.

Blogging Reflection

I decided to leave my blog public this semester because I wanted to see who would read my posts and if my writing actually affected the people who interacted with it. My parents actually read some of my posts even though I didn't tell them about it. Since we're connected on google+ they basically stumbled upon my blog which was comical. To be honest I'm going to leave my blog up just because I don't really know what else to do with it but I'll only send it to community partners if its for something relevant that I'm doing in the future. I kind of wanted to start debates and conversations so my sense of awareness for my audience didn't affect what I was writing about. I decided to post this onto my blog because its a good conclusion to everything that I talked about this semester. Overall I had a good experience since this was my first serious blog and topics that matter.

Feeding the World

I really enjoyed Ryan Finley’s TED talk about the food deserts that exist in South Los Angeles. He said that “food is the problem and the solution” and that’s important because people need to understand what food does for the mind and body (Finley). It’s crazy to think that Beverly Hills, California is 8 miles away from South Central and has an abundance of fresh food options. Finley’s solution to these food deserts in South Central is for people to take control of their situations and plant fresh food options for themselves. Not only plant for themselves but take advantage of the 20 other gardens that Finley established in South Los Angeles so families have more nutritious food options. The rhetoric that Finley uses is Pathos driven because he wants to bring out positive emotion towards gardening and the benefits it has for communities. Ryan Finley is a leader in the South Los Angeles community and he’s doing important work to make more families have fresh food options. The more knowledge people gain from working in these gardens the healthier their lives will be. As I mentioned before there isn't an excuse for communities to be in food deserts when “the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet.” Unfortunately “the food problem is one of distribution and waste” which is what journalist David Biello thinks (Biello 234). I agree with Biello because industrialized farming creates enough grain to sustain people across the planet, but poor families don’t provide the necessary market for this. That’s why the excess grain goes to the livestock because a profit will be made since higher-income people will pay for the meat. Frances Lappe, an environmental activist and author makes the same argument that it’s not that the world needs more food, it’s the distribution of food that makes it seem like it’s a scarcity. I like a quote from her essay “Biotechnology isn’t the Key to Feeding the World” where she says “hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy” (Lappe 250). The concern should be about how the excess food that goes to waste or ends up as feed to livestock can be distributed to those in need.

Debate about "The Omnivore's Dilemma" between Hurst & Pollan

I think this agricultural debate about farming techniques is interesting. Michael Pollan makes some good points in his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” about how GMO’s and pesticides should be eliminated from farming practices. He also goes on to talk about how animal agriculture should be humane and free range. This sounds positive and progressive for farmers to be have more organic practices but Pollan fails to discuss how expensive such practices are. Blake Hurst, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau defended industrial farming techniques with his essay titled “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals”. Organic farming techniques are more expensive which would raise the price of food altogether and make it difficult for lower-income families to purchase groceries. Also the crop yield would be less if organic practices would be used because crops would be more susceptible to weeds and insects. Also for animal agriculture the yield would be less. For example Mother Pigs eat their young sometimes and by accident roll over and crush their piglets if they’re not put into pens separating them. But Pollan is calling for free range animals and in this situation that would be a negative outcome as the pork yield would drop and thus raising the price of pork if free range pork became the norm. Another example that Hurst provided was how a neighbor of his lost 4,000 turkeys during a thunderstorm. They were free range turkeys but they are smart enough to know to find shelter during a storm and stayed out in the open, unprotected. Their beaks would be open and they would drown because of it. Overall, Hurst and Pollan have good arguments but I think that organic methods is an expensive alternative and not everyone has the monetary means to pay for the higher priced organic foods. Blake Hurst does well to defend industrial farming and I appreciate his perspective towards understanding real-world issues with agriculture.