Long Island 's Unique Ecological And Socio Economic Environments

Global warming, pollution, and dwindling fossil fuels will always be the conservational problems if nobody starts to buy local grown foods. Katherine Spriggs, author of the essay, “On Buying Local,” explains how having a large variety of foods at all times of the year is not worth the negative effects in the communities and their economies (Spriggs 92). As a community, many environmental challenges are being faced; Buying local will help bring advantages to not only the environment, but also the small towns and the

The growing locavore movement suggests that local food is key for healthy eating and community growth. One would imagine that the closer the source of one’s food is from, the healthier and more sustainable it is, right? However, this is not the case. In the set of locavore articles, the authors provide information to show that the locavore movement brings about issues involving inefficiency, energy use, and impracticality.

In terms of governmental involvement in the management of food deserts, we argue that very little has been done legislatively by the Metro Nashville and Davidson county government. Despite the fact that several areas in the Davidson County have been identified as food deserts by the USDA, little to no legislation has been created to combat the problem and its effects on the health of its citizens. Edgehill has been put on the USDA map of food deserts, because it qualifies “as a “low-access community,” [where] at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles)” (USDA). However, the

The agriculture industry is not only the largest industry within our state, but also within our nation. However, in recent years it has also been one of the most heavily criticized. This has led to a ‘brain drain’ in rural America as more people decide to leave our industry and their family farms.

To conclude, our current way of agricultural life is not sustainable. The article “What’s for supper” has made me realize that if I hope for a better future for generations to come I should support a locally sourced lifestyle. This article is an eye opener to me and proved to me the importance of supporting locally grown produce. Locally grown produce supports the environment as well as jobs for people in the community. The current system takes a toll on every species on the planet. Humans are overproducing on a massive scale and are wasting close to half of our supplies and

Following this food production in Australia will be discussed and the effects this has had on the land.

In order to change the way the United States food system is operating at the moment, a change needs to be made in the education that people are receiving about the way their food is produced, manufactured, distributed and consumed. The U.S. food system has become increasingly reliant on mass production factories and multinational retail corporations while local farms and family owned food markets diminish. Economies of scale and opportunity costs represent barriers to change of the current food system because of the many different paths available, each creating different outcomes for consumers, sellers, large corporations and small farms, determining their profit, prices, capital and value. Educating the American people about the benefits of local food production and the downsides of large scale food production, such as nutritional value, disease and safety concerns, and economic advantages, will help to move our food system from “point A” to “point B”.

One of the most troubling issues that is concerning our country is the amount of people living with type 2 diabetes and obesity because of food deserts. Food deserts are affecting the lives of older generation and could follow into the next generation if nothing is done to eliminate the harmful consequences of food deserts in the United States. A complete wipe out of food deserts will not be an easy process, it will years to change the eating habits for lower-income communities. It is less of a challenge to just put a supermarket in a community that needs it, but changing poor nutrition is not as easy. To dispose of food deserts, there are several ways to take action within rural communities. Since fresh fruits and vegetables are troublesome

Many areas in the United States contain an abundance of neighborhoods that function with little to no healthy food sources nearby because of the large number of people in poverty. With the fleeing number of locally owned grocery stores and convenient fast food restaurants sprouting in urban and rural areas, residents do not have an adequate quantity of fruits and vegetables readily available. The City of Baltimore defines a food desert as “an area where the distance to a supermarket is more than one quarter of a mile; the median household income is at or below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level; over 30 percent of households have no vehicle available; and the average Healthy Food Availability Index score [convenience stores, corner stores, and supermarkets] is low” (Food Deserts). Baltimore City today “ranks second among similarly sized cities for the number of low-income people living in food insecure areas” (Freishtat, 2014). Leaving eight percent of white Baltimoreans living in food deserts compared to the 35 percent of black Baltimoreans, and 30 percent of children living in food deserts in Baltimore alone (Buczynski, 2015).

Berry talks about how consumers should know where the food they eat comes from and should learn to adapt in producing their own food. His main idea is “eat responsibly” (47). Food is not considered by farming

A new type of agriculture, locavore, is becoming larger and larger, the locavore lifestyle is promised to give anyone who lives it a healthy life. locavore is the practice of only consuming locally grown foods. Joining the locavore movement and eating locally grown foods is more healthy and helpful to the human body, but forcefully changing Americaʼs diet would prove to be dreadfully difficult, not to mention the negative impact it will have on the economy, including the fact that eating local foods is not the only way to stay healthy .There are many issues that must be taking into account before determining whether a transition so large would truly benefit any community or wreak havoc.

“The world’s most isolated chain of islands, Hawaii imports nearly 90 percent of its food at a cost of more than $3 billion a year.”- Food Independence Could Be a Matter of Survival for the U.S.’ Most Isolated State. We only produce 10% of our own food. Fifty years from now if nothing is done about our reliance on imports and our lack of sustainability, I foresee that fossil fuels and other necessary goods will be rationed. The

The Seacoast of New Hampshire and the surrounding regions are full of a vast amount of local food resources. In my town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, people are making it their life’s work to spread awareness about the importance of locally grown food. The Seacoast Growers Association is one organization that has been holding farmers’ markets since the 1970s. Besides just working to make local food available on the seacoast, “…this Local Food Network also offers great educational and awareness building programs and promotes the importance of clean water, air and land to preserving not just our agricultural heritage, but also our future” (Seacoast Growers Association).

Nations are judged and measured by their production and selling of goods and services. Not only has increased consumerism resulted in ecological imbalance, it is also depleting earth’s natural resources, which in turn is creating an environmental crisis. One of the biggest products being consumed is food. Rapidly growing world’s population requires increased food production. Author Anna Lappe does an excellent job expounding on the impact that food production and distribution has on the environment. Lappe (2015) argues that modern practices of food production directly contribute to air pollution and increases carbon dioxide emissions (par. 11). Crop production uses an absurd amount of land, artificial fertilizer, and harmful pesticides that seriously pollutes the environment and threatens young children and wildlife species. Author Sandra Steingraber (2015) also argues that increased consumerism has led to a high usage of harmful chemicals to produce products for consumers (par.

Agriculture in the United States has changed dramatically over the centuries. Since the 1960’s large commercial farms have been leading in sales. As a direct result of their success we, as a society, have access to affordable food. However, the success of large farms has lead to many negative impacts such as increased usage of resources and decreased diversity in crop fields. This begs the question, what can be done to reduce the negative impacts of large farms. One solution growing in popularity is sustainable agriculture. The idea of sustainable agriculture is to create farms that need little to no outside help from irrigation, pesticides, or fertilizers. Sustainability can be achieved in many way through