FST 102 Study Guide - Final Guide: Wicked Problem, Overconsumption, Mutation
8 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Food Systems & Contemporary Issues
● Food Systems
○ the set of vast, interlinked institutions that transform sunlight, water, and
soil into meaning-laden food
○ To provide nutrition + keep us alive
● Foodways
○ Patterns that establish “what we eat, as well as how and why and under
what circumstances we eat”
○ Preparation, consumption, cultural dimensions of food and eating
○ Focus on meat reflects abundance of resources conquered with north
america
● Contradictions
○ The conceptual framework for this class
○ A combination of features within a system that are opposed to each other
○ Food is both richly symbolic & undeniably material
○ Food system produces vast quantities of food & growing hunger
○ Globalized food system provides access to a diverse array of cuisines &
pushes foodways toward homogeneity
○ Industrial food system requires vast amounts of fresh water & is the
leading source of freshwater pollution
● Use Value
○ The quality of a commodity derived from its actual usefulness and
importance for individuals as it fills a need or purpose
● Exchange Value
○ The quality of a commodity derived from its market value (price) or
determined by the quantity of other goods from which it might be traded at
a given market
● Modernist
○ Conventional science as fundamental driver of social and economic
progress, which is assumed positive and inevitable
● Productivist
○ Relentless effort to increase output and efficiency; assumed to benefit
everyone
● Commodity
○ An interchangeable mass-produced good that takes its value from the
price it gets on the market
○ Embody both labor that made the object and the environmental inputs
which they are comprised
Labor
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
● Farmworker
○
● OSHA (BB reading)
○ Occupational Safety and Health Association
○ Governs workplaces as pertaining to labor
○ Inspect factories
○ Signs on wall
● Cumulative Trauma (reading on BB)
○ Health concerns that cumulate
○ Standing on a line, deconstructing poultry, same repetitive process
○ Injuries: slip and fall, cut your hand, etc.
○ In other work places too; office workers = carpal tunnel
● Agricultural Exceptionalism
○ Not regulated like other sectors
○ Age
○ Minimum wage
○ Workers not protected
● Invisible Labor
○ Work invisible to beneficiaries
Environmental Contradictions
● Footprint of Food
○ All elements of food system require natural resources & produce waste
○ A source and a sink
○ Ecological footprint: impact of an individual/community on the
environment measured as land required to sustain their usage of natural
resources
● Input
○ Resources, materials, energy
● /Output
○ wastes
● Political Economy
● Greenhouse Effect
○ Infrared radiation trapped by gases in the air (CO2)
○ Enhanced: increasing levels of CO2 increase amount of heat retained,
causing atmosphere and Earth’s surface to heat up
● Climate Change
○ Average weather over long period of time change
○ Impacts: intensity of sun, earth’s orbit, atmospheric gases
● Greenhouse Gases
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find more resources at oneclass.com
○ CO2 ~ 84% emissions
○ Methane (potent!) ~ 9% emissions
● IPCC
○ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
○ CONSERVATIVE body
○ Assesses scientific basis of climate change
○ Works thru consensus as a democratic body
● Feedbacks (feedback loop)
○ Circular causal processes
○ Output returned as input
● Biocapacity
○ Capacity of earth to sustain life
○ Not in terms of pure population numbers
● Eco-Apartheid
○ disparities in environmental conditions
○ The wealthier you are, the more likely you are to live in a better
environment, better resources
● Mitigation
○ Reduce buildup of greenhouse gases to slow warming
● Adaptation
○ Adjust to climate change
● Monoculture
○ Growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species, variety, or breed in a
field or farming system at a time
○ Can lead to buildup of pests and diseases
● GMO
○ Genetically modified organism
○ Genetic engineering: manipulating genetic codes in lab
○ Mutation, insertion, deletion of genes
● Transgene
○ Organism containing novel genetic material artificially introduced from an
unrelated organism
○ Could not be produced thru conventional breeding
● Cisgenesis
○ Organism that has been engineered using a process in which genes are
artificially transferred between organisms that could otherwise be
conventionally bred
○ Flavor savor tomato
● Diamond v. Chakrabarty (1980)
○ First time that you could patent life itself
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Food systems the set of vast, interlinked institutions that transform sunlight, water, and soil into meaning-laden food. To provide nutrition + keep us alive. Patterns that establish what we eat, as well as how and why and under what circumstances we eat . Preparation, consumption, cultural dimensions of food and eating. Focus on meat reflects abundance of resources conquered with north america. A combination of features within a system that are opposed to each other. Food is both richly symbolic & undeniably material. Food system produces vast quantities of food & growing hunger. Globalized food system provides access to a diverse array of cuisines & pushes foodways toward homogeneity. Industrial food system requires vast amounts of fresh water & is the leading source of freshwater pollution. The quality of a commodity derived from its actual usefulness and importance for individuals as it fills a need or purpose.
