Distribution #1 -- Blog for 3/17

Zambia

Zambia’s food system is similar to the US industrial food system in that both systems overproduce an extreme amount of maize. Moreover the low market prices of the maize often keep farmers from making any money. One way to improve the Zambian food system and make it more sustainable both ecologically and economically is to implement mixed farming. Mixed farming would include integrating farm animals such as cows into the fields. The animals would fertilize the soil and therefore raise the soil fertility.

Wisconsin

The biggest challenge I saw from the case studies is capital. This is a problem we have already discussed in class. Small-scale growers typically are unable to grow yields that compete with bigger, industrial growers and keep up with regional demand for crops. This is because they lack access to the infrastructure and machinery necessary to make this possible. The most innovative solution suggested in the reading was to cultivate relationships with investors. Investors might be anyone who supports the grower’s long-term development.

Real Food Challenge / FoodCorps

The Real Food Challenge engages students to become activists within their community and encourage their universities to shift some of their food budgets away from large-scale, industrial food distributors and towards local, humanely grown food. They hope to shift $1 billion overall by 2020. FoodCorps enlists members to spend a year teaching children about food and health, building and supporting small school gardens and bringing high-quality local food into cafeterias. I do not think that one approach is greater than the other because though they both target young people, they have different but equally important goals. The Real Food Challenge pushes for large-scale change within universities. By shifting budgets towards local/community grown food at these large universities, The Real Food Challenge is making a real economic impact within local communities. On the other hand, FoodCorps is changing the individual perspectives that children have on food, where food comes from and what to eat. This is serves less of an economic purpose and more of an educational one.