The final blog post

Resistance to Sustainable Agriculture

One of the main resistances to sustainable agriculture is the cost. It costs money for farmers to change over to sustainable ways of farming, including equipment, various crops, and a person's way of life. To change over to sustainable farming involves more regulation including erosion control and organic crop production. Another resistance are farmers attitudes towards changing their farming practices that have been in their families for years. It's tough to convince and old time farmer to change over to a new type of farming. It's especially hard to explain the long term benefits of sustainable agriculture. To solve this, the idea of sustainability must be presented to people of resistance in a straight-forward an honest manner. If it doesn't stick to the old timers, perhaps the younger generations can get on board.

Lastly, sustainable agriculture can jeopardize the availability of year round produce and other goods. Sustainability coincides with "natural" and it's not "natural": to have fresh oranges in Pullman in January. Perhaps with the development of hydroponics, out of season crops can be grown locally. This will then benefit not only consumers, but the farmers in the long run.

References That Help to Understand World Hunger and Sustainablity

This is covering three different topics that relate to world hunger which including fair-trade and sustainable agriculture.. 15 references:

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=1271

Gives a good basic understanding of world hunger, not only the United State's role, but also in a global context. In which the United States plays a much bigger role in world hunger then we give credit.

http://www.freedomfromhunger.org/info/

Talks about world hunger, and hows it relates to early childhood. Under the age of five, nearly 11,000,000 children are severely malnourished.

http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

Gives a great graph to show the world hunger problem and gives numbers on a year by year number.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7669152.stm

Gives insight on one country, India, which is one of the most stricken countries of world hunger in the world, again gives a great picture and graphs for people to look at.

http://www.oneworldhunger.org/

This page is a world relief organization to help eliminate hunger, on a global spectrum and has good interaction tools so that you can get a better understanding of what is going on.

http://foodforlifeglobal.blogspot.com/

Is a blog about world hunger. The writer is amazing and is very detailed and has very good insight on the very touchy subject of world hunger.

http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-basics/hunger-facts-international.html

This website displays facts and figures about world hunger. It's a great website because it also tries to curb the problem.

http://www.sustainabletable.org/intro/whatis/

Great website for those who don't know what sustainability is and how its beneficial for the world as a whole. Good informational website.

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture.cfm?id=main&CFID=2935500&CFTOKEN=92194129

Nice visuals and pictures. A great website for information and how sustainable agriculture may help to save the rainforest.

http://csanr.wsu.edu/

A great website showing what this community is striving for in sustainability. Especially in local and global contexts.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateG&page=PACA

A website with various resources on fair trade. A good place to go to go and see fair trade regulations.

http://attra.ncat.org/

More information on sustainable agriculture. Various viewpoints and information accessed here.

http://www.fairtradefederation.org/

Here is a quote from the front page that explains it quite well, "The Fair Trade Federation (FTF) is the trade association that strengthens and promotes North American organizations fully committed to fair trade."

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

Fair trade website that promotes the practice. Great because this website is from the United Kingdom.

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/61/fair-trade

A great informational blog type website. Fair trade is explained and promoted here.

Sustainable Agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is important in ensuring the well-being of the land, farmers and wildlife over a long period of time. This is done by limiting harmful chemicals and keeping the soil and water healthy through erosion prevention. Crop rotation is vital in keeping farming practices sustainable and provides the plants with essential nutrients making them able to produce higher yields. The disposing of plant wastes can be used for energy through the burning of biomass thus limiting the wastes produced by a farm and giving energy to the farm.

Organic farming is a type of sustainable agriculture where the focus is to not use any type of chemical on the crop. Hydroponic farming can be especially beneficial to farmers who have little access to good quality soil by growing plants in mineral rich solutions. The benefits of sustainable agriculture are overwhelming to both mankind and the land. Even though the transition of traditional practices to sustainable ones will take money and time, there seems to be an approaching answer to many of the hungry across the globe.

History of World Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture

This map shows that world hunger affects every population, but most notably in countries in Africa and Asia.
We understand that world hunger has always been an issue in the world and will continue to be. For example the Irish Potato Famine in the 1800's to the suffering and lack of food in the Darfur region currently. However with the development of sustainable agriculture I believe world hunger can be greatly reduced.
A brief background into sustainable food; it has really become popular within the last few decades. Especially with the implementation of hydroponic and organic farms. With the ability of hydroponics, vegetables can be grown year round without worrying about the effects of the elements. Also more vegetables can be grown in smaller areas without erosion and without costly chemicals.
Hydroponic food was used in the Pacific Ocean before and during WWII where soldiers grew vegetables on the soil poor islands. Hydroponic farms have since advanced and are (as well as organic farms and sustainable agricultural practices) becoming more and more essential in fighting world hunger.

The Beginning of a Journey

Video 1

http://food.change.org/blog/view/ending_childhood_hunger_by_2015

the beginning

So this blog is starting up, to talk about sustainable food and hunger in the US but also on a global context. I hope to bring insight, both about the US and the world when it relates to not only sustainable food but also to bring a thought provoking ideas on how to stop the most deadly disease known to man hunger.