Our Failing Food System: Promoting Pesticide Resistance.

I stumbled upon this very informational website with it's own section about food and agriculture (link). It's the Union of Concerned Scientists. I think this site is very interesting because it's more applicable to me from a science perspective on the issues about food and agriculture in our society. In that section I stumbled upon the article: "Our Failing Food System: Promoting Pesticide Resistance." Here's the link to the original article: (link)

The article talks about the pitfalls of large-scale industrial farming that uses herbicides. The crops grown by these farmers are genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide developed by the same company. While at first effective, it was found that long term use of this herbicide encouraged the development of weeds that were resistant to it. The consequence of this was that once the weeds were resistant, they spread in a manner that could not be controlled. Farmers would then have to resort to using more herbicide and even heavy tilling--both unsustainable practices. The author mentions that the resistant strains could be avoided by alternation of herbicides; however, this practice is not promoted because it effects the financial gain of the company who both genetically modifies crops and produces the herbicides to treat them. Similarly, the situation with pests and pesticides has developed in that pests are becoming more resistant to pesticides. 

I think this article is interesting for a number of reasons. It addresses the issue of genetic engineering crops and the consequences of use of herbicide from a scientific perspective by listing different references and sources to support its claims. I feel like this issue can be applied to any sort of farm--even an urban one--because weeds and pests are not an isolated issue to industrial farms. My garden at home has a pest problem--these tiny pincher bugs keep eating my flowers! UFarmIIT has pests, though I don't believe it's become a problem yet. But the lesson that should be taken away is that practices should be taken to ensure sustainability. These types of farms grow crops on large scale and thus have to resort to large scale solutions to their pest and weed problems which may not always have our health in the best mind. The reason I bring up health is because I like the fact that our farm doesn't use herbicide or pesticides. For the most part, we have natural ways to ward off pests such as planting specific flowers. It's nice to know that food we're growing doesn't have any unwanted chemicals in it. That means our food is healthy and we're healthy.

I saw this in a pin on Pinterest and thought this was a rather neat trick. Here's the link to the source site. But it's a mixture of water, vinegar and some liquid dish soap that creates a weed killer mix. For a small scale farm or garden, this is a pretty easy way to get rid of weeds because every home has dish soap and water. Personally, I don't cook with vinegar, but I'm sure a lot of people other people do. So this could be a solution to weeds. Could large scale farmers use this method? Probably not unless it was executed correctly.

IDEA: Pineapples?

Again, another one of my Pinterest finds. Growing pineapples! I have never been a fan of pineapples. I don't really like the taste or the texture. The texture just freaks me out. It reminds me of insects. Don't ask.

But I stumbled across this photo and I was so intrigued! I know it's not all that related to farming. But it IS related to growing! I've been really inspired by my IPRO to become more of a green thumb. Why? Because it's really cool to see your food grow right in front of you. I live in a small apartment and so it's been a challenge starting up my own garden but I have made it work with the small space I have.

That's why I loved finding this article about growing a pineapple at home (link).

For some reason, I always assumed pineapples grew on trees. Imagine my face when I found this image and realized pineapples were grown from these stumpy things! It looks really cool when it's growing. I might try this just to watch it grow then give the pineapple to someone else.

Anybody watch Psych?

Shawn Spencer and Burton "Gus" Guster II want you to grow pineapples!

IDEA: Recycling Two-Liter Bottles into Seed Starters!

You cannot tell me that this is not a great idea:

This father and his children created these seed starters out of two-liter bottles. Read about the process here. The reason why I make a point of bringing to light such a simple project like this one is because it has a great impact. It recycles plastic bottles. It grows food. You can get children involved with it. It's a small enough project to be done in any sized home or garden. There's just a lot of positives about this project that I like.

Week Three! Garden Duty, Plants, and Me! Oh, My!

I tried my hardest to play off a Wizard of Oz Reference in this post' title. Not sure if anyone caught that. It's okay if you didn't. My last few posts have been a little dry, that's because I've been studying hard for another class which I had an exam for this week. I think it's awfully surprising how quickly this semester has been trudging along. There's so much our IPRO wants to do but we have to be realistic with the goals we set for ourselves.

For Monday's garden duty Hannah and I split up the watering again. While one of us was watering, the other was weeding. As I was going around the farm I was amazed to see how much everything had grown in the short time we've been working on this IPRO. Lots of plants were fruiting already such as the peas, kale, leafy greens, bok choy, and numerous small tomatoes have been popping around everywhere! They're all little green ones but I take a lot of pride of being a part of the maintance for these fruiting plants.

Yesterday in class our IPRO became more organized. At the end of class we discussed goals for the IPRO and individual committees, as well as adjusted team members based on who was still left in the class. After class was over, a few of us stayed longer to plant the remaining plants. We put more peppers in hoop house and some tomatoes on the south side fences--I had to transplant some flowers to north fence on opposite side where the strawberries are being planted in order to do this. More herbs were planted on the west fence and the beds were filled as well. So the farm right now, has a high amount of producing plants in it right now.

Next week is already midterm review presentation. Since I've moved to the Farm Planning team I've been organizing the presentation for that. Hopefully I can have it done before the weekend is over.

What I like about this class is that I really am learning alot. Learning how to grow my own food and being able to do that myself has been really helpful. I recently moved out of on campus housing. Ok, maybe that recently but I don't have meals ready for me at a consistent time which means I've had to learn how to plan and cook my own meals (and make sure it's enough!). The learning curve was pretty steep but seven months out and I think I'm doing fairly well. The problem is that food can be pretty expensive. Coupled with living expsenses, sometimes food gets placed on the backburner. And that shouldn't be the case. Being able to grow own food allows me to save more (granted it takes awhile for them to be producing). If only you could grow meat.

Sorry guys, no pictures in this one. I didn't take much. So here's a picture of a cute bunny:

IDEA: Website that plans garden

Trust me when I say I do other things beside scroll around on Pinterest all day.

I found this website that creates a plot map of your garden. I thought this would be particularly useful for our IPRO since we're always wondering where what is planted. This way someone can update the online plot and everyone who has access to it will know it's there. This would help avoid planting over other plants.

Take a look: Smart Gardner

Pinterest, Week One Article Comments, & Week Two Plans.

So I have a Pinterest account. I know what you're thinking--no, wait a minute, no I don't. Someone shouts: Get on with it Michelle! Okay, okay. Pinterest has actually been a really useful website for me to get new ideas. No, I am not just saying that because I'm using it to plan a wedding that's no where near my future. Pinterest has helped me gather ideas on a multitude of subjects like home & school organization, sorority recruitment (I'm in a sorority, this was a natural instinct of mine), craft projects, and kitchen recipes. So naturally when we were instructed to create an idea book to fill with ideas for the garden, my mind automatically went:

PINTEREST!!!

No, literally, that's what happened. I thought, "Pinterest would be so helpful and bring up ideas that I probably would never had thought up on my own!" I created a board on my Pinterest account devoted to the garden. I've already posted some preliminary things onto the board. I won't talk about each and everyone of them on here, but the ones I think are particularly applicable and helpful to UFarmIIT I'll comment on. Anyway's here's a link to that: CLICK ME & ENTER THE WORLD OF PINTEREST!

For Week 1, we had to read these three online articles: Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States: Farming from the City Center to the Urban Fringe (link), Concentrated poverty and homicide in Chicago (link),and Deadly Poverty (link) . This is the order I will be commenting them on.

Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States: Farming from the City Center to the Urban Fringe

First off, when I opened this article I said, holy smokes, that is a lot of .pdf pages. So I closed all my other internet browser windows, turned on some relaxing guitar music, pulled out a notebook and pen, and began to read. And no, I did not just read the summary and call it quits. Though... I did toy with the idea. Shame on me.

Here are my comments on this article :

This article is very thorough in presenting the picture of urban agriculture. It covers all aspects on urban agriculture including the advantages of urban agriculture as well as the challenges it faces today. Though a lengthy, the article is a good read and very informational. Urban agriculture addresses many of the issues today's society not just limited to the economy. Urban agriculture is the definition of reduce, reuse, and recycling in urban communities. Many of the tools needed to start and even maintain an urban garden are already present and available in an urban community. The article also presents many challenges that urban agriculture faces but then provides a list of appropriate ways to deal with them. There is an obvious need for urban agriculture which the author of article insists that communities to address. The benefits of urban agriculture would be felt throughout the local community.

The article was academic which made for the lengthy read. I'm not one to rehash and reiterate facts which is why I didn't. I guess you could say that this article gives UFarmIIT a bigger reason for being. It really puts into perspective what we're doing with the farm and why it's important that we continue to develop it.

Concentrated Poverty and Homicide in Chicago

I'm going to try and refrain from tangential outbursts for the rest of this post--no promises though. This article was an interesting read--very different from the last one I read. Here are my comments:

The subject of this article is made very apparent by its title. The author comments on the relationship of race, poverty, and homicide rate arguing that they are indeed related. The alarmingly high rates of poverty and crime are due to the racial segregation and discrimination that have occurred over the decades, the author argues. Though not directly commenting on the topic of urban agriculture, which is the one of the focal points of IPRO 314, the socioeconomic issues that these communities face could benefit from the introduction of urban agriculture projects. This was one of the points made in the first article, that the community that surrounds an urban farm stands to benefit from it. Again, this gives IPRO 314 a greater sense of purpose. It's not a farm for the sake of growing plants but a solution for social justice issues that many communities face.

On a less serious note, I liked that the page was very colorful.

 Deadly Poverty

And we're diving right into it:

This article was very similar to the previous one--a continuation if you will. The focus was placed more on the consequences of poverty and high crime in these areas on the population living there. The need for urban agriculture projects in these communities is very high since people suffer from inadequate diets. Much like I mentioned in my previous comments, urban agriculture would address the suffering these communities go through. I would be interested in reading an article that describes the effect urban agriculture when introduce to Chicago neighborhoods deemed poor.

As a junior in high school, I took a course in social justice. Now, that doesn't make me an expert in social justice by any means, but I can recognize when a social justice issue is being brought to my attention. Chicago has some pretty obvious social justice issues. Take a walk down Michigan Avenue and, while it oozes of consumerism, it is still very much populated with homeless people (is that the politically correct term?). Even still, you can walk the streets of Logan Square and find some pretty nice neighborhoods, walk a few more streets over and instantly be in a poor neighborhood (assuming we are relating poor, poverty stricken neighborhoods with high crime as suggested by the last two articles). The problem, in my opinion, is that there's a lack of movement for change. I'm not dismissing any sort of action that is currently being taken to fix the situation, I'm just saying it's not enough and we need more.

This is super far fetched, but it would be kind of cool if our IPRO 314 could spawn an organization that actually goes into these poverty stricken communities and begin urban agriculture projects. That's a very large task on it's own as UFarmIIT itself is still in development; however, even the small plot of land that it is on now, the lot next to my sorority's house (how many times can I plug my sorority into this blog? The limit does not exist... #nerdjoke), produces so much! Introducing the same sized lot to a neighborhood, maybe even a neighborhood as small as IIT's main campus, would still affect a great amount of people. A girl can dream.

Anyways, social justice issues aside, this week for IPRO we will be visiting the Iron St. Community Garden. I'm particularly interested  in seeing how large it is and what other products are being grown. Our chore duties start this week for the garden. Hopefully the rain doesn't interfere too much--I wore my white flats today. Good choice? Bad choice? Probably Bad.

Here's a dog is a superman costume:

Until the next post!