Reading to be done before Class: AE Article 24 "Diet, Energy, and Global Warming" and

Pollack, Andrew.  2010.  Panel Leans in Favor of Engineered Salmon.  New York Times.  September 20. 

Optional (read especially if you are interested in GMO issues "Which Wheat Will Win?" Associated Press, Wired News, March 7 2004. "Pharms Take Root in South Africa" Megan Lindow, Wired News, October 20, 2004. "Tracking Tasmanian Tomatoes," Stewart Taggart, Wired News, March 6 2000.
Come to class with a basic familiarity with the following concepts and ideas:  Genetically Modified Crops

Where does our food come from, and most importantly for environmental conservation, under what conditions is it produced? In our continually urbanizing society the answers to these geographical questions are increasingly easy to ignore. This week we seek to answer these questions paying particular attention to the issue of how the global food production systems affects the environment at a variety of scales. The major theme in the two readings for this week is the contrast between technologically enhanced food production and  and more traditional small-scale farming methods. The first article focuses on the amount of energy required to support different kinds of diets.  The second article looks at the issue of whether genetically modified salmon should be approved for production in the United States.  While factory farming and GMO's seemingly benefit the global population by providing increased outputs of food, there are clearly still many questions to be answered about their impact on our environment. As a class we will consider what these two articles have to say about our modern, globalized agricultural system and try to understand its benefits as well as its costs to the environment. A series of optional articles considers issues surrounding genetically modified crops as well. The following questions will guide our discussion.

Lecture

Genetically Modified Organisms

Examples of GM crops

Impacts of GM crops

Discussion

1. How do factory farming and small-scale farming systems differ?

2. What are the benefits of factory farming methods?

3. Who are the winners and losers as factory farming methods grow in popularity within a region?

4. What is driving the trend toward increased scale in agriculture?

5. What kinds of environmental degradation may be associated with factory style farming? What can be done to mitigate this environmental degradation and at what cost?

6. How can the concept of feedback be applied to understand the globalized agricultural system?

7. Does it matter for the environment where you get your food from? Why or why not?

8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both complex and simplified farm systems?

9. Are factory farms more or less efficient than small farms? Which uses land more efficiently?

10. If more factory farming systems were never developed, would we still be able to feed the world's population?

11. What is the source of these two articles? Does this matter?

12. Will genetically modified crops and other new technologies help to resolve some of the difficulties in the factory farming system or will they further contribute to the difficulties?