Farmer Market Observation

America’s vast food supply has increased. Foods that were once hard to come by can be found in almost all the grocery stores across the nation. In the article “What’s Eating America”, by Michael Pollan, who is a professor of journalism, explains how the bounty of food came about. He writes about the creation of synthetic fertilizer and how it was used to fertilize crops and essentially make all the foods today. He writes about the harmful effects that are occurring as a result of the chemically made fertilizer. In another article called written by Katherine Spriggs, a student from Stanford University, she writes about the benefits of buying local versus becoming dependent on the import of food. She feels that buying from local farms

For example, the film presents the counterproductive result of feeding cows with contained brains of infected cows that spread a deadly disease through the cattle known as ‘the mad cow disease’. This type of intensive farming is characterized by its use of antibiotics and pesticides that cost higher prices for farmers. Some farmers turn into the industrial farming not always by choice but for companies that own or influence those intense farming practices. There is two agribusiness that has a monopoly the market by selling agricultural technologies to farmers such as pesticides, GMO, and fertilizers that often influence the public policy and farming practices. This system is unsustainable and produces cheap food products which cost is not included in the market but people end up paying for due to the externalities on health, social and environmental problems. As the documentary highly at the start, Americans hate the most the inconvenience of things and therefore some people take for granted their food and prefer to consumed processed products that are toxic, other people who live in food deserts do not have much choice to consumed these toxic products but is the system that limits their accessibility to affordable fresh

For example, in the 1990s, there was a food scare, called Alar. “Alar was a chemical conventional growers sprayed on apples to help them ripen. In 1990 the Environmental Protection Agency found that Alar could cause cancer” (Pollan, 2009, p. 117). Since the EPA found that Alar could cause cancer, the was a huge jump in the demand for organic foods. In the book, Omnivore's Dilemma, it states, “According to the book Omnivore's Dilemma, it states,¨In a shed attached to the mill sit vat of liquid vitamins. Beside them are fifty-pound sacks of antibiotic drugs¨ (p.55). Industrial farmers who raise cattle, use antibiotics and other medications to make their cows grow faster and fatter. In conclusion, industrial organic is better for your family because there aren’t harmful chemicals like Alar, being used to produce your crops. Also, the farmers don't feed the animals medications and drugs to make them grow fat. They use organic feds which are better for the animals and resulting in a better tasting

The customers that buy from local sustainable farms know how their food is grown and harvested. At the Polyface farm Joel does not have walls on his slaughter house, this way people can come and see how their next meal is killed in a humane way. The people “don’t need USDA to ensure that the meat they’re buying has been humanely and cleanly processed,”(208) because they can watch with their own eyes how the meat is slaughtered. Industrial industries protest that selling produce locally can not get food to everyone around the US. Shipping produce across the country effects the foods taste. Also when customers go to the far, to pick out their own food they get the produce fresh and local. Local farmers on sustainable farms will make a bigger profit out of their produce because they do not have to put all their money into buying chemicals and fertilizers, this is good for the produce and farmers.

All food should be available to all people. The concept of this is dwelled on in the article, “Food justice and Food retail in Los Angeles” by Mark Valliantos. Throughout the article, Valliantos maintains the notion that healthy food should be within everyone’s reach, yet inner cities are still suffering from shortages of fresh produce. To see this issue in action, Valliantos documented this reoccurring phenomenon in Los Angeles. The author gives a description of two areas within the city of Los Angeles, and how they are economically divided based on the amount of healthy produce one has at its disposal. He makes note of programs that already exist to help low income families receive healthy foods that they could not afford. He also

A discourse community follows Swales’ six characteristics: members share common goals, has a form of communication, a form of feedback, genres, a specific lexis, and has a level of expertise all within the group (Swales 25). I believe the Future Farmers of America is a great candidate for this topic for that it falls in to the categories listed by Swales. The start of Future Farmers of America came in 1900s in the state of Virginia. Adolescent to teenage males were not interested in farming and did not want to take over the family farms. This led to a homegrown farmer becoming the supervisor of Agriculture Education and set out to fix this problem, Walter Newman. With the help of Edmund C, Magill, Harry W. Sanders and the most influential Henry

One tactic that Spriggs effectively utilizes in her essay is her recognition and counter arguments to these opposing views. For example, one of the arguments Spriggs addresses is the the claim from Alex Avery, the director of research and education at the Center for Global Food Issues, who states that we should “buy food from the world region where it grows best” (qtd. in MacDonald). To this quote, spriggs states that “His implication is that it would be more wasteful to try to grow pineapples in the Northeast than to have them shipped from the Caribbean”. Spriggs then acknowledges this claim, agreeing that he makes a good point. However, she then quickly follows up by stating “buying local should instead focus on buying as much as possible from nearby farmers”. This is an effective rebuttal to Avery’s clam, because buying local is about eliminating unnecessary shipping by focusing on buying products that were grown close to home and which are in season, and not about growing everything in one place year round, just so we can have strawberries in Ohio in the month of

A major criticism of organic foods is the obvious price increase included with purchasing organic products. While there are numerous reasons for the price premium associated with organic foods, the most obvious reasons are the cost of organic supplies such as feed and fertilizer to make a profit. George Siemon, CEO of the Organic Valley co-op, states that “A ton of organic cattle feed can cost from $350 to $400 a ton versus $220 or less for a ton of conventional feed,” illustrating a major price difference for simply fertilizing a crop (Simon). With access to more resources than organic farmers, conventional farmers will often spend less in the overall farming of a crop than organic farmers, increasing their profits. Conventional farmers often use materials such as “sewage sludge, which is cheap to buy, and chemical fertilizers, which are both cheap to buy and cheap to transport” (Simon). Using these potentially hazardous chemicals for crop production runs the major risk of chemical runoff and contamination of local water supplies or reservoirs, which will directly affect

The second section to be reviewed is chapter thirteen. In this chapter, Pollan sees how Salatin sells his food and how it compares to other supermarkets. Compared to other supermarkets, Polyface Farm’s food is more expensive; however, Salatin argues that it is actually, if fact, cheaper. He believes that because it is produced without subsidies and it is more sustainable compared to industrial food. Consumers also have a reason for choosing Salatin’s food over other supermarkets. They believe that his chicken tastes better and would rather pay for quality, which it seems many people do not want to do today. For example, I work at a farmer’s market and you would not believe how many people complain

Local farmers markets give back to the community from the income that is made from selling produce which helps boost the community’s economy. “ Eating local means more for the local economy. “ ( Source A ) Purchasing local foods from the community are a spectacular way to provide for a community’s economy. “ According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. “ ( Source A ) Local food markets are better for the economy because the income would go to the community unlike a big chain supermarket where the income made in that establishment would go to a corporate office, none of the income would be put towards the

Michael refers to the supermarket as a landscape where all species derived from the single crop of corn. Michael tells a story about a corn field in Iowa where the farm had been passed down to the family and was quiet successful back in the day. George’s crop in inedible they are fed to livestock so shipped to factories to be processed. His family survives from the income of his wife who works for a social services agency. The supply of corn has greatly surpassed the demand and therefore alternative decisions must be made as to where the corn will go which is why it is fed to cattle and other livestock. This is Pollan’s way of tracing the steps of the industrial food chain. Since corn is produced so cheaply using synthetic nitrogen which creates a dependency on our fossil fuel resources rather than our solar resource. The Feedlot method has produced more issues than solutions. Yes, it does result in fattening cattle quicker which in term then produces faster meat but it results in manure that is extremely high in concentration of phosphorous and nitrogen that cannot be used as fertilizer to regenerate nutrients in the soil. If the soil cannot be regenerated cattle must be moved which leads to medical problems, which were attempted to be solved using antibiotics but only increased antibiotic resistant bacteria. These new practices benefit corporations that run them and produce easy and quick cheap meat but Pollan warns that they come with repercussions. Some of those

Every Sunday morning for the past 38 years, at exactly 8 am, the Encino farmer’s market, located on Victory Blvd. comes to life. The smell of freshly baked breads and pies wafts around the area and mixes with the scent of fresh fruits and berries, creating an aroma that brings along with it memories of large family dinners and a sense of community. It is a small farmer’s market, but it doesn’t lack the chaos one would always associate a farmer’s market with, as soon as the doors open, it fills to the brim with the hustle and bustle of elderly couples and families young and old, and vendors welcoming them to their stands with friendly hellos and recommendations of seasonal products that just came in stock. The shoppers all seem to be familiar, greeting each other as they exit their cars and waving to one another as they pass by, with

With the mass production of food, companies like ConAgra Foods, the parent company of Healthy Choice, Tyson, or even Whole Foods, may cut corners to the growth, treatment, and processing of food. In recent years, there has been a hype in organic food, locally grown food and GMO free foods, but what do these words mean? Most of these words on stickers are aimed to sell customers overpriced food that is farmed conventionally. Organic food has been claimed to be healthier for people, although the organic food label is misleading consumers into purchasing overpriced foods, and forces farmers to use unreliable farming techniques.

In recent years, many people don’t go more than a few days without hearing about organic foods in one way or another, whether it be through the media, friends or the numerous labels at the grocery store. For me, whenever someone brings up organic foods, they always put them on a pedestal of health caused by people’s recent disgust with the industrialized way we produce foods, which, to be fair, is not unfounded. I had assumed it was a bunch of gibberish, however, the data suggests a more ambiguous answer.

She also gives details about why most people feel that the cost of organic foods is worth it by including data. The data included information for the foods that amazingly enough are the finger foods that our children consume regularly, and these foods had the highest levels of pesticides. She also explains why most of our conventional farmed foods are unhealthy, not only by pesticides in our crops, but also our meats. Cropper is a writer for Newsweek Magazine and although I am not very aware of her credibility in organic foods, she seemed very informed on the subject. In this article she is not biased and she gives adequate information about organic foods.