Case Western Reserve University Food Systems Discussion

You will learn about Food Systems this week. As you saw last week with the “Future of Meat” documentary from the environmental health lectures, our current dietary and agricultural practices are unsustainable for 7.8 billion people. Unless we shift our infrastructure, we may likely run into issues ranging from increased antibiotic resistance, lack of food, insufficient land and/or climate change.

In the United States, we are generally a food secure nation (meaning as a country we have food but of course that doesn’t mean everyone in the country has food-i.e the ecological fallacy) and we will not feel the immediate impacts as heavily as low and middle income countries. These are the foreseeable problems that food system was bracing for. However, the Coronavirus pandemic has caused an even greater strain. Here is a link to what is currently happening with the Dairy industry in Okeechobee, Florida. The second link is talking about nation wide food waste as a result of this pandemic, with some examples of Florida industries.

Dairy Farmer in a Pandemic : https://lakeokeechobeenews.com/coronavirus/crisis-forcing-dairies-to-dump-thousands-of-gallons-of-milk/?fbclid=IwAR2ECb5XNjicSSzAoPIr3L_w1rZ-3rI2eVd8YyIhw2shsxUn1L_LQjePx00

Food Waste in a Pandemic: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/05/food-waste-coronavirus-pandemic-164557?fbclid=IwAR3vyaM2lyHChe9VpSGOospOuqLfLvapdGvtrGiwKRyHmEuNWR-7BFO_rak

Read the articles and comment on the following questions.

What was your reaction to each article and the events happening?(at least 200 words) You have a lot of flexibility in this response. Consider this question as a brief reflection “essay” to the articles above-are you angry, unaffected, troubled, concerned, etc? How do you think this might impact certain segments of the population financially, emotionally, physically, mentally, etc? Do you have any proposed solutions? Express whatever comes to mind after reading these articles.

Find an article (other than the two above) describing the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the food systems industry and provide at least a 150 word summary/explanation. You can talk about what is happening at your local community with Farmers Markets, State-wide, the United States or any global connections/food related industries. Remember that a food system is an all-encompassing term that includes the complete process from government to food waste and everything in between