Week 2

Week 2, Day one

Goodman & Redclift: Origins of the modern agro-food system

This is an intense reading, but some important questions to focus on: (TBA! On my other computer!)

Week 2, Day two

Goodman and Redclift: Women into factories: Freezers into kitchens

I was gone unexpectedly for this class, but here is the google doc where students outlined some of the key concepts (with varying success)

Also assigned was the Introduction to Fresh, by Susan Friedburg, to set us up for the following week. Questions for this showed up next week. 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 25, 2018 at 9:30 AM

    The emergence of the agricultural industry in the US closely followed the development of new technologies and machinery after the Civil War and just before the first World War. Its mirrored also by the intensification of agricultural demands, which followed a European model of open-field plowing, that eventually led to the degradation and deflation of rich loess soils previously held in place by tough grasses on the Great Plains and severe erosion of the southeast. There is also a direct relationship between the emergence of the steel plow, railroad connectivity, and instant communication (telegraph/telephone) and intensification of farming demands eventually being driven and controlled by corporations that could provide and control distribution of crops. My point is that I think that the emergence of 'big-ag' in the US was more an 'egg before the chicken' phenomenon in that the tech appeared first, then was followed by increased demand on farms when food (grains in particular) became commodized, and then control of ag was taken from the average farmer and controlled by speculations.
    -Chantel

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