R SOC355 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: University Of British Columbia Press, Urban Agriculture, Beekeeping

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Rural Sociology
• Course: R SOC355
• Professor: John Parkins

Document Summary

Shift from traditional tilling to zero till (leaving residual crop to prevent topsoil from blowing away) soil conservation. Less diversification (less mixed farming, economies of scale) Environmental awareness (riparian zones, importance of wetlands) Organics/free-range (even big retailers are promoting these things: Sustainability (people want food that is sourced sustainably with some guarantees of that; having government regulation is not enough, consumers want the word of the producer) Division between producers and consumers due to urbanization, out- migration. Note that many of these consumer values are held by a small proportion of the population. These trends are still in their early phases. Food prices have been on the rise: drought, conflict. Argua(cid:271)ly, (cid:449)e (cid:272)a(cid:374)"t afford to reje(cid:272)t large scale agriculture in favour of small family farms: we need a lot of food, efficient production to lower food prices. Age of canadian farmers: most are 55, ~10% are less than 40 years old. Provincial efforts to attract younger people to farming.