A & D Blocks Human Geography - Today, we'll look at the key question "Why Do Farmers Face Economic Difficulties"? Commercial and subsistence farmers face comparable challenges. Both commercial and subsistence farmers have difficulty generating enough income to continue farming.
Rice farmers of the Philippines from Dan Chung on Vimeo.
The underlying reasons, though, are different. Commercial farmers can produce a surplus of food (as we saw yesterday), whereas many subsistence farmers are barely able to produce enough food to survive. Because the purpose of commercial farming is to sell produce off the farm, the distance from the farm to the market influences the farmer’s choice of crop to plant. A commercial farmer initially considers which crops to cultivate and which animals to raise based on market location and the von Thünen model tries to help explain this.
Answer the following questions about von Thünen’s model:
Who was von Thünen?
According to this model, what two factors does a farmer consider when deciding what to plant?
How does cost determine what farmers grow?
How does transportation cost influence profitability of growing wheat?
How could von Thünen’s model be applied at a global scale?
Next you'll look at Genetically Modified Organisms (connected to food). Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) are living organisms that possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained using modern biotechnology. Until last year, only four GM crops have been grown in Canada: corn, canola, soy and white sugar beet (for sugar processing). In 2016, GM alfalfa was planted for the first time and in March 2016, a GM potato was approved. The potato is genetically engineered to have less asparagine, an amino acid that oxidizes into acrylamide (a probable carcinogen) at high-temperatures (e.g. frying). Source Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN). Also AquaBounty Technologies has indicated that it sold GM salmon filets here in Canada where Atlantic Salmon have been endowed with a growth hormone taken from Pacific chinook salmon that makes it grow faster. GM is especially widespread in the United States. Three-fourths of the processed food that Americans consume has at least one genetically modified ingredient
You have some questions to answer for me:
- There is little new land available for farming. In fact, the current trend is to reduce agricultural land rather than increase it. Identify and briefly describe three reasons why land is currently being removed from agricultural use.
- Why do you think Europeans generally avoid genetically modified food while Americans generally do not? Does your family avoid foods made with GMO seeds? Why or why not?
- Describe the characteristics of the “miracle wheat seed”.
- Describe the characteristics of the “miracle rice seed”.
- What specific problems do farmers in LDCs have which might prevent them from taking full advantage of the Green Revolution?
- What three crops are often genetically modified?
- Approximately how much of major crops in the US are genetically modified?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of genetically modified foods?
Finally, we'll look at food prices and the growing crisis of farmer suicide rates. Food prices, rather than food supply, has emerged as the greatest challenge to world food supply in the twenty-first century. For instance, food prices have more than doubled between 2006 and 2008, remained at record high levels through 2014, and declined sharply in 2015.
We'll also look at the suicide crisis among farmers
B Block Criminology - So just 9 of you posted on last weeks on line thread and only one of the nine of you commented on others posts. Just 11 of you posted on the previous week's on line thread and just six of those people commented on others posts. We cannot have an online discussion without comments or discussion, right? In order for this to work you need to engage in the conversation. So, using the information I posted last Friday on "Infotainment" and shaming work on the "Big Ideas connecting the three shows" question in the online Reality Crime Television thread along with the question on Why is it important to study crime media?
Tomorrow we'll look at sociological criminology and focus on how social class is portrayed in the media, specifically, we'll examine the Social Structure view of criminology that examines the impact of poverty on an individual’s chance of committing crimes.
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