I can’t remember the first time I tried chocolate. However, there’s a photo of it: me on my first birthday with a chocolate cupcake I had smashed on my face. Delight is tangible on face, although it’s hard to discern whether that’s from the cupcake or the act of smashing it. Either way, chocolate is something we generally associate with pleasure, especially in American culture. It’s not something we eat to sustain our bodies, it’s something we eat for the pure pleasure of taste, to celebrate a special occasion, or treat ourselves after a long day. The contemplative practice on chocolate urges you to think about the chain of commodities behind chocolate – to think about the labor (and to some degree, the suffering) that was invested for a single bar of chocolate. In this sense, a contemplative practice has equal power to be peaceful as it does to be disturbing. It’s easy to be a blind consumer, after all, a lot of businesses are not seeking to empower you. It’s not like the food you buy at the store or the coffee you drink says, “Made in exploitative conditions!”, it’s on the buyer to look for the fair trade certifications and hope that they mean what they say, often at the expense of a few extra dollars. 

However, there are many intricacies of fair trade, and none of them are particularly clear without further research. After doing the contemplative practice, I felt inspired to look at another product I use everyday (tea) to see how equitable it was. I saw a lot of little labels on my boxes of tea, a “fair trade label”, a “certified b corporation”, “quality assurance international”. But what do they mean? In class, we have read and discussed how the individualization of food and environmental responsibility can lead people to believe they are making a difference without actually working towards any political change. The little labels we choose to read or not read urge us towards a similar end. The reality is I can buy my certified fair trade organic peppermint tea that was produced in Sri Lanka and still have no idea what that really means or what conditions it was really produced in. I may feel I did the ethical thing but I also bought a Nestle Candy and who knows what conditions that made in. 

My overall point is we are global consumers, and it’s hard for us to know where our products come from and how ethical that is. On an individual level, we can work towards understanding the sources of food, but there’s not going to be actionable change until there is more consistent transparency in our food system.

 Through this class, we are exercising contemplative practice each session only for a couple of minutes, where we reflect all of our senses comprehensively on our soul, body, and environment, that how we are connected with the world, what is our impact on the world and what is our connection with our environment? I am sure these exercises have different meanings for different people. However, this short exercise gives me the sense that humans are deeply connected and depending on one another regardless of our race, religion, or geographical location, and the same is true with our environment.

Our dependence on one another globally starting from the very basic livelihood, like the food we eat, and the clothes we wear. When we go grocery shopping, we can see the food we consume is coming from all over the world especially from our neighbor country Mexico, https://classroom.synonym.com/list-of-foods-imported-into-the-us.

Which we observed on assigned videos that from the farm to the market our food is taking a lot of time, effort, and labor, which shows our dependencies and interconnectivity to others regardless of how rich or poor we are. It shouldn’t be untold, that those farmers and chain of supply workers are depending on us too, we can say, it is the two-way street. The same is true in our clothes and shoes, that either it is importing from China or other parts of the world.

But our dependence on the environment is far beyond imaginations, since we are getting our environmental livelihood cheap or free, we never focus on their vitality of it in our life. For instance; the air we are breathing is the most important element, which with the absence of the air our lives will end immediately, https://www.studyread.com/importance-of-air/

likewise, water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcT6Kf9OiZoThese two very important elements of life (air and water) is not the only element that directly we need to consume in our open body for surviving, but it is the only source that indirectly affects our life too. Since the life of human beings is only possible by eating to maintain our body, our food is coming from the land directly or indirectly, our vegetables are coming directly, meat and other animal products are coming indirectly that we consume. This means the land, plants, water, and air are all the component of our life, that besides we dependent on one another, we are unavoidably depending on these elements, and we should make the best policies to protect and keep it clean to the best possible way, even if some of our leader like Donald Trump discarded. When I first joint this class I was confused that how food is connected to politics but now I can see that food has a very broad field and it is the most important part of politics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed numerous fundamental defects in many, if not most, systems in the United States. One that has become increasingly pertinent is the agriculture industry’s dependence on undocumented workers.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, 47% to upwards of 70% of domestic farmworkers are not US citizens.

Undocumented workers will not receive the benefits from the stimulus package, and as a result neither will their children, many of whom are citizens. This makes the decision of whether or not to go to work even more difficult, even though the risk of infection for workers is higher due to a lack of protective gear and handwashing facilities, as well as preexisting health conditions from exposure to pesticides and chronic stress.

Farmworkers in Ventura County (photo by: Juan Carlo/The Star)

However, what has most stood out to me as a matter of concern was the undeniable presence of fear. In the article Essential but Exposed by Yvette Cabrera, farm laborers shared their experiences with undertones of anxiety: “Carmelita requested that her last name be withheld because of fear of reprisals from her employer”, “Susana, who requested that her last name be withheld because she is undocumented, told Grist in Spanish”. The reluctant responses heard from farm workers do not parallel the outrage of other essential services workers not receiving proper equipment or access to sick leave, which raises a larger point of concern regarding our food system. 

It is difficult for me to imagine a scenario in which extraneous actors can successfully advocate for a more environmentally, economically, and socially just food system, when those who build the foundation of said food system are silenced by fear. The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on a fundamental injustice that until addressed, will limit the possibility of a truly sustainable world food system.

Original Article: https://grist.org/justice/farmworkers-are-risking-their-lives-to-feed-a-nation-on-lockdown/

Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak the world has experienced many consequences. A major one  is the threat of food shortages worldwide. With a pandemic of this scale, supply lines have become shut down, such as ports and air travel. This affects some areas more than others, but overwhelmingly, poorer areas in the world will be affected to the greatest extent. The UN has urged governments, businesses, and international agencies to take action now before this becomes a globally upsetting issue.

A place of note in all of this is the Pacific Islands. They will be affected the hardest with this because of the distance from their supply chains. With travel being severely limited food has no way of making it to these islands.

Additionally, China, who was affected most significantly by the outbreak, has increased its need for exports from Australia. However, with fights effectively cancelled to and from China, Australia cannot send items to this region. Australian food exporters will begin to look for other avenues rather than the China-Pacific region to sell products. This will affect many regions of China and potentially cause food shortages. However, wealthy areas like Hong Kong and Singapore can buy their way out of this problem.

Ultimately, countries need to be aware that COVID-19 is not going away any time soon. It could go through remission periods with times of resurgence shortly after. Its important to prepare people for potential shortages, weather it is giving its people money to buy more or creating alternate solutions to lapses in the system. Also, some level of international cooperation must occur to prevent places from going hungry. If this isnt able to happen, many places will suffer. These problems are all happening because of measures being taken to prevent spread of the virus which shows a dependence on technology when it comes to distributing food. The infrastructure has fallen incredibly quickly and the world was drastically unprepared for this outbreak.

All info found from this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/10/asia/coronavirus-food-supply-asia-intl-hnk/index.html

We are 60 students and two instructors trying to wrap our minds around the political ecology of the world food system. We ask ourselves: Where does our food come from? What are the social, political and ecological roots and consequences of current agricultural practices? Who wins and who loses? How will climate change impact agriculture and trade? We are exploring the global carbon and nitrogen cycles, food-petroleum nexus, questions of meat and genetically modified food, and new food movements around the world. Given the current pandemic, we are also asking ourselves how COVID-19 is and will impact our world food system. And we take all of this to heart in asking how our planetary food web challenges our sense of personal identity and ethical responsibility. Welcome to our learning adventure!

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