Your Tia has the right idea — with the current (and worsening) global food crisis, agricultural science is the real growth industry! And we’re going to need smart people like you to feed us in our old age!!
There is more food produced now than the world can eat. The problems lie in corporate greed (not the producers but the distributors) and racial and tribal rivalries and hatreds.. Farmers are paid by governments to not plant acreage and even to dump produce in order to keep prices artificially inflated. Food rots on docks because the government dominated by one tribal or racial group won’t allow it to be distributed to areas where it’s needed to benefit those of rival groups. Food shipments intended for one group are stolen by another group for themselves, with the surplus to be sold at inflated prices while the intended recipients literally starve. Crop seeds are engineered to be non-germinating so farmers must buy seed every year instead of keeping a portion of their yield for next year’s planting. This same seed requires expensive fertilizers, pesticide and herbicides (developed and sold by the same corporations that develop the seed). This in turn creates a dangerous monculture that is subject to total destruction of an entire season’s crop when a blight or pesticide-resistant insect infestation occurs. This already happens with bananas; one variety is planted nearly world-wide, and every few years the variety has to be changed due to the monculture’s vulnerablity.So the solution to world hunger does not lie with advances in agriculture, but rather with advances in human nature not likely to happen anytime soon.
Excellent, Sottwell. There is one more problem we are facing in my predominantly rural county. Dallas is trying to flood much of the county for water supply lakes that won’t be needed for fifty years, even at the current rate of “growth” (as a cancer grows) and wasting most of it on green lawns in a drought. You did cover part of this in your essay because the farms being flooded out are small family farms rather than agribusiness plantations.
I just checked the Spanish translation. “Rama” is “branch” as Tía Carmen was thinking for her grandniece, but the acronym is [Recursos humanos, Antropología, Matemáticas, Arquitectura.]
rayannina over 13 years ago
Go for it, Gracie! And my daughter can help — she’ll be a couple of years ahead of you in the same program.
machpovii3 over 13 years ago
Generation gaps.
Destiny23 over 13 years ago
Your Tia has the right idea — with the current (and worsening) global food crisis, agricultural science is the real growth industry! And we’re going to need smart people like you to feed us in our old age!!
sottwell over 13 years ago
There is more food produced now than the world can eat. The problems lie in corporate greed (not the producers but the distributors) and racial and tribal rivalries and hatreds.. Farmers are paid by governments to not plant acreage and even to dump produce in order to keep prices artificially inflated. Food rots on docks because the government dominated by one tribal or racial group won’t allow it to be distributed to areas where it’s needed to benefit those of rival groups. Food shipments intended for one group are stolen by another group for themselves, with the surplus to be sold at inflated prices while the intended recipients literally starve. Crop seeds are engineered to be non-germinating so farmers must buy seed every year instead of keeping a portion of their yield for next year’s planting. This same seed requires expensive fertilizers, pesticide and herbicides (developed and sold by the same corporations that develop the seed). This in turn creates a dangerous monculture that is subject to total destruction of an entire season’s crop when a blight or pesticide-resistant insect infestation occurs. This already happens with bananas; one variety is planted nearly world-wide, and every few years the variety has to be changed due to the monculture’s vulnerablity.So the solution to world hunger does not lie with advances in agriculture, but rather with advances in human nature not likely to happen anytime soon.
oeva1234 over 13 years ago
scotwell. I found your whole thing on food very interesting. Thank you.
Number Three over 13 years ago
Awwwww, How cute.
LOL xxx
hippogriff over 13 years ago
Excellent, Sottwell. There is one more problem we are facing in my predominantly rural county. Dallas is trying to flood much of the county for water supply lakes that won’t be needed for fifty years, even at the current rate of “growth” (as a cancer grows) and wasting most of it on green lawns in a drought. You did cover part of this in your essay because the farms being flooded out are small family farms rather than agribusiness plantations.
Templo S.U.D. over 13 years ago
I just checked the Spanish translation. “Rama” is “branch” as Tía Carmen was thinking for her grandniece, but the acronym is [Recursos humanos, Antropología, Matemáticas, Arquitectura.]
Jollie_Ollie over 13 years ago
✿ Perfecto! ✿