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.
I also agree that a big issue in America is food excess. It baffles me that we have enough food to feed the whole world, but most of it goes to waste. I also agree that the more people educate themselves in gardening, the more we can work toward healthy living.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's easy to forget the issue isn't just the amount of food but where it goes.
ReplyDelete