agriculture definition

I began my day reading the blog post on the Marler Blog about the listeria traced to frozen vegetables. Bill Marler, Frozen Vegetables with Listeria Linked to Illnesses and Deaths in Washington, California and Maryland,  Marler Blog (May 3, 2016). According to the post, "On April 23, 2016, CRF Frozen Foods recalled 11 frozen vegetable products because they may be contaminated with Listeria. On May 2, 2016, CRF Frozen Foods expanded the initial recall to include all organic and traditional frozen vegetable and fruit products processed in its Pasco, Washington facility since May 1, 2014."  CRF sells frozen vegetables under "various brand names." I had never heard of CRF Frozen Foods, so I decided to check which brands were affected. I think that most people would be astounded to see all of the different brands that CRF supplies. I was. Check out the FDA recall announcement and scroll through the pages of different brands listed.  All of those different established br...

From Wikimedia Commons: The California Central Valley as seen from 20,000 feet. This is a south-facing view of the area north of Modesto, and east of Stockton and Manteca, as identified by comparison with aerial photography. �Solar is in, biomass energy is out�and farmers are struggling to dispose of woody waste�  By Geoffrey Mohan, reporting from Fresno for the Los Angeles Times (December 31, 2015)   �It should have been a good year for turning wood and waste into electrons. A record-setting drought forced growers to bulldoze thousands of acres of trees, and hardly anyone in the Central Valley has permission to light bonfires anymore. But more than trees have withered in California�s sun. The state�s biomass energy plants are folding in rapid succession, unable to compete with heavily subsidized solar farms, many of which have sprouted up amid the fields and orchards of the San Joaquin Valley. Paul Parreira is painfully aware of the irony. The third-generation grower and a...

In the course of reading and research for a bibliography on �philosophy, psychology, and methodology for the social sciences,� I came across an intriguing discussion of a book by Jeffery M. Paige, Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York: Free Press, 1975). Paige�s study is invoked by Harold Kincaid in Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences : Analyzing Controversies in Social Research (Cambridge University Press, 1996) as �an exemplary piece of social science research.�* I was particularly intrigued owing to my professional (such as it is, being an adjunct instructor) and political interest�to put it blandly�in (among other things) Marxism , for Paige is motivated by a Marxist sociological orientation in ascertaining �the primary causes of agrarian behavior, particularly in developing countries,� yet his study is not simply a predictable or banal academic exercise of �doctrinaire Marxism.� As Kincaid proceeds to sho...

Giving Thanks , Horace Pippin (1942) �Enough is as good as a feast.�� Sir Thomas Malory (d . 1471)  �When you drink water, remember the mountain spring.�� of Chinese provenance �When eating fruit, remember the one who planted the tree.�� of Vietnamese provenance   �Gratitude� in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The Resnick Program for Food Law & Policy at UCLA School of Law recently released an excellent report, Food Equity, Social Justice, and the Role of Law Schools:  A Call to Action, researched and written by Kim Kessler and Emily Chen. The Report was written as part of the University of California�s Global Food Initiative. This system-wide initiative "challenges campuses to develop solutions for one of the most pressing issues of our time: the 'quest to establish global food security and address related challenges of nutrition and sustainability.'"   Michael T. Roberts  serves as the Director of the Resnick Program. The report articulates the need for law schools to "more visibly and holistically address this pressing societal challenge," and it considers how law schools across the nation are currently addressing the "social, economic, and environmental injustice in our current food system." It highlights the ongoing work within the California ...

My bibliography for C�sar Ch�vez & the United Farm Workers is here .  Luis Gonz�lez�s Hasta La Victoria Siempre , c/s (1975) �Humor and kinship among veterans led members of the Rebel Chicano Air Front to adopt the ironic name of the Royal Chicano Air Force after their acronym�RCAF�was misidentified with the Canadian military. Operating out of their Sacramento, California headquarters (the Centro de Artistas Chicanos ), they organized community programs, designed murals, and printed posters in support of the United Farm Workers Union . This collaborative spirit shines in Hasta La Victoria Siempre, c/s , a print by Luis (or Louie �the Foot� Gonz�lez), based on his brother H�ctor�s photograph of a United Farm Workers pro-labor rally. Interested in concrete poetry, Luis Gonz�lez wove the typed words long live , strike , and tomorrow into a fluid pattern.�

Around the world, between a quarter and half a million children go blind each year as a result of a deficiency in vitamin A and within twelve months, half of them die . G olden Rice was created to tackle this problem, by genetically engineering Vitamin A into the rice grain . It is golden because its vitamin A comes from beta carotene, which also puts the orange in carrots . One of the areas of the world where Golden Rice is designed to be consumed is Asia, where a high proportion of calories are derived from rice consumption, and where vitamin A deficiency is endemic . [�.] T he technology presents itself as a feel-good solution for politicians who�d rather not face the more profound, persistent and difficult questions of politics and distribution . There�s more than enough vitamin A to go around. Half a carrot contains the recommended dose of vitamin A . The plain fact is that the majority of children in the Global South suffer and die not because there is insufficient food, or becau...