Here is a speech delievered by Louise Fresco at TED. Please watch it and make a summary of it or an essay related to it. Also, list words that you've learned from the video clip.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/louis ... world.html
The link listed below can help you better comprehend the speech.
http://boingboing.net/2009/02/05/ted200 ... fresc.html
ISG 0816 How to Feed the Whole World
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Sherry Liao
- YOYO member
- 文章: 1486
- 註冊時間: 週五 12月 07, 2007 12:15 pm
Re: ISG 0916 How to Feed the Whole World
My summary:
In the video Louise Fresco talked about bread (a symbolic representation of food) and its development. Before industrial revolution, most of the population in a society is farmers, for food is crucial for life, and most steps in the procedure for working the land are time-consuming and have to be done by hand. However, thanks to the advanced agriculture technology, nowadays only a small portion of the population in a modern society is responsible for farming but still able to produce plenty of foods to feed the whole society, so the rest can free themselves from struggling for foods and can spend their efforts on other things.
Fresco also tried to defend large scale agriculture against criticisms such as pollutions and damage to diversity. She claims that "good science" is the measure to be taken to solve the problem. It is not wise to go back to traditional farming ways or small scare agriculture.
In the video Louise Fresco talked about bread (a symbolic representation of food) and its development. Before industrial revolution, most of the population in a society is farmers, for food is crucial for life, and most steps in the procedure for working the land are time-consuming and have to be done by hand. However, thanks to the advanced agriculture technology, nowadays only a small portion of the population in a modern society is responsible for farming but still able to produce plenty of foods to feed the whole society, so the rest can free themselves from struggling for foods and can spend their efforts on other things.
Fresco also tried to defend large scale agriculture against criticisms such as pollutions and damage to diversity. She claims that "good science" is the measure to be taken to solve the problem. It is not wise to go back to traditional farming ways or small scare agriculture.
-
Sherry Liao
- YOYO member
- 文章: 1486
- 註冊時間: 週五 12月 07, 2007 12:15 pm
Re: ISG 0916 How to Feed the Whole World
I tried to write an essay, but I failed. Anyway, since I am not going to join your discussion this week, I'd like to provide my comments on this video:
Basically, I think Fresco's standpoint seems very plausible. She points out the fact that agriculture technology needs to be improved in developing countries or areas to make farming more efficient to feed more people. Fresco believes it is a fallacy that small scale agriculture is the solution to the world food problem (she thinks it is just a luxurious way for people to do in developed countries).
I do agree that freeing people from starving is a top priority, when it comes to world food problem-solving. However, it is not the main purpose of small scale agriculture or eating local in a modern society. The world is not as flat as we might think. It is not that all farmers in the world farm the land for the whole world. While many people are suffering from hunger, there are still many areas that the amount of food is produced more than necessary. For those who are lucky that they don't need to worry over hunger, the meaning of food is not only the essential need for life. We need to think more about it. Today the serious problems large scale agriculture brings us have been beyond most people's imagination. Large-scale businesses control and manipulate many technologies and ways to produce and transport foods. Sometimes we don't know how the food we eat daily is made, what the ingredient is, and even where it is from. A vegetarian may never know that the veggies he/she eats contain animal genes in them. Those are issues for people in a civilized society to consider. Obviously Fresco's speaking does not consider this part.
I hope you enjoy the discussion and see you next week!
Basically, I think Fresco's standpoint seems very plausible. She points out the fact that agriculture technology needs to be improved in developing countries or areas to make farming more efficient to feed more people. Fresco believes it is a fallacy that small scale agriculture is the solution to the world food problem (she thinks it is just a luxurious way for people to do in developed countries).
I do agree that freeing people from starving is a top priority, when it comes to world food problem-solving. However, it is not the main purpose of small scale agriculture or eating local in a modern society. The world is not as flat as we might think. It is not that all farmers in the world farm the land for the whole world. While many people are suffering from hunger, there are still many areas that the amount of food is produced more than necessary. For those who are lucky that they don't need to worry over hunger, the meaning of food is not only the essential need for life. We need to think more about it. Today the serious problems large scale agriculture brings us have been beyond most people's imagination. Large-scale businesses control and manipulate many technologies and ways to produce and transport foods. Sometimes we don't know how the food we eat daily is made, what the ingredient is, and even where it is from. A vegetarian may never know that the veggies he/she eats contain animal genes in them. Those are issues for people in a civilized society to consider. Obviously Fresco's speaking does not consider this part.
I hope you enjoy the discussion and see you next week!
Re: ISG 0916 How to Feed the Whole World
Essay: Global food shartage need a thorough plan
When a crisis is a common issue in world regions, it is supposed to be solved in an integrated way. Global food shortage has attracted worldwide concerns, and this shared problem will be an on going issue, unless there are thorough plan to handle it.
Every nation is bearing the weight of wining the competition in the present era of globalization, and this trend will lead to worse the global food shortage. An expert Louise Fresco suggests her theory of subsidizing the small scale farmers to gain the quantity of their crops with economical energy, and uninvented farming technology. Globalizational pressure, however, seems to be the primary concern for many countries. How not to be marginalized of the world and how to make every inch of a country’s land facilite better competiveness in global market are top two thought of policy making. These two thoughts are fundamental against of Fresco’s small farm’s idea.
Rather than planing for different issues, rich countries tend to only response to climate change issue. Recently, America and Europe’s policies of subsidizing biofuel seem to be a well structured policy to serve the desperate need of petrol. If a field is used for biofuel crops, the act will decrease food crop production. These policies, however, will urge the surge of the food shortage problem.
An idea might be executed well as a solusion for one problem, but it also could cause another problem. How to not only deal with food shortage issue, but also keep one nation competitive, and keep the earth clean surely need a thorough plan involve different expertises instead of only one expertise working on one issue.
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Materials I refered to:
01:Article:How to End the Global Food Shortage
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 34,00.html
02: What is biofuel?
When a crisis is a common issue in world regions, it is supposed to be solved in an integrated way. Global food shortage has attracted worldwide concerns, and this shared problem will be an on going issue, unless there are thorough plan to handle it.
Every nation is bearing the weight of wining the competition in the present era of globalization, and this trend will lead to worse the global food shortage. An expert Louise Fresco suggests her theory of subsidizing the small scale farmers to gain the quantity of their crops with economical energy, and uninvented farming technology. Globalizational pressure, however, seems to be the primary concern for many countries. How not to be marginalized of the world and how to make every inch of a country’s land facilite better competiveness in global market are top two thought of policy making. These two thoughts are fundamental against of Fresco’s small farm’s idea.
Rather than planing for different issues, rich countries tend to only response to climate change issue. Recently, America and Europe’s policies of subsidizing biofuel seem to be a well structured policy to serve the desperate need of petrol. If a field is used for biofuel crops, the act will decrease food crop production. These policies, however, will urge the surge of the food shortage problem.
An idea might be executed well as a solusion for one problem, but it also could cause another problem. How to not only deal with food shortage issue, but also keep one nation competitive, and keep the earth clean surely need a thorough plan involve different expertises instead of only one expertise working on one issue.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Materials I refered to:
01:Article:How to End the Global Food Shortage
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 34,00.html
02: What is biofuel?
Re: ISG 0916 How to Feed the Whole World
Ha ha, Sherry:Sherry Liao 寫:I tried to write an essay, but I failed. Anyway, since I am not going to join your discussion this week, I'd like to provide my comments on this video:
I hope you enjoy the discussion and see you next week!
You take care of yourselves, and family. Have you packed up yet?
Hope you have a great trip.
Re: ISG 0916 How to Feed the Whole World
i have already listened to the speech, but have no time to write down my summary
i will finish it tomorrow, after our discussion.
Dear Sherry
enjoy your massage~~
i will finish it tomorrow, after our discussion.
Dear Sherry
enjoy your massage~~
Re: ISG 0816 How to Feed the Whole World
The advent of industrial revolution has completely transformed agriculture all over the world; most manual works in farming industry are nowadays done by automatic machines, which not only increases produce yield a lot but greatly reduces the amount of labor needed. Take Europe as an example, only one percent of its population are farmers.
Globalization is another factor that has changed the world agriculture significantly – large-scale farming is prospering these days. Thanks to globalization, the foods we eat today are relatively inexpensive and come from almost everywhere in the world. To every single country, globalization makes its less competitive farming industries diminishing, while the survived, in an attempt to keep their competitive edges, are getting larger in scale .
Unfortunately, large-scale farming comes at the expenses of deforestation, water pollution, the destruction of bio-diversity, etc. A counter-movement, which advocates the revival of traditional small-scale farming and local food production, are now emerging.
Dr. Fresco, however, bluntly pointed out that the idea of turning back to traditional farming was based on a glamorized image of the past agriculture. The truth was, Fresco said, farmers in the past lived in straitened circumstances. The other problem of traditional small-scale farming is its prices are not affordable to the poor. Fresco also didn’t subscribe to the view of local food production as it reduced the diversity of our daily food.
The alternative Dr. Fresco proposed was small-to-medium-scale farming which raise yield by fully exploiting cutting-edge agricultural science and robots. By doing so, farmers' living standards will be improved, the poor will be able to afford food prices, and the adverse effects of large-scale farming will be avoided.
Globalization is another factor that has changed the world agriculture significantly – large-scale farming is prospering these days. Thanks to globalization, the foods we eat today are relatively inexpensive and come from almost everywhere in the world. To every single country, globalization makes its less competitive farming industries diminishing, while the survived, in an attempt to keep their competitive edges, are getting larger in scale .
Unfortunately, large-scale farming comes at the expenses of deforestation, water pollution, the destruction of bio-diversity, etc. A counter-movement, which advocates the revival of traditional small-scale farming and local food production, are now emerging.
Dr. Fresco, however, bluntly pointed out that the idea of turning back to traditional farming was based on a glamorized image of the past agriculture. The truth was, Fresco said, farmers in the past lived in straitened circumstances. The other problem of traditional small-scale farming is its prices are not affordable to the poor. Fresco also didn’t subscribe to the view of local food production as it reduced the diversity of our daily food.
The alternative Dr. Fresco proposed was small-to-medium-scale farming which raise yield by fully exploiting cutting-edge agricultural science and robots. By doing so, farmers' living standards will be improved, the poor will be able to afford food prices, and the adverse effects of large-scale farming will be avoided.
Re: ISG 0816 How to Feed the Whole World
To come out with a summary this time is much more difficult than I expected. 
Maybe next time I should pick something easier to digest.
Maybe next time I should pick something easier to digest.Re: ISG 0816 How to Feed the Whole World
In the advanced countries, industrialization has made the production of food increased and given more variety to the daily meals , yet there are many people in the other part of world are still struggling for their daily food. With the help of mechanization and fertilizer, now there is only 1% of people are farmers to feed the country. And and it lets the rest of us to have more freedom to do the other things. The mass production of wheats has made price for food become cheaper and people started to add more seasonings to the food which leads to obesity in the advanced countries. But in the developing countries, the food produced by small-scale mechanism or even labor is not as competitive anymore comparing with the advanced countries.
Therefore, Louise Fresco suggests that we should go back to the rural life when the time food is more authentic and natural but with the help of small-scale mechanism and modern science to relieve the burden of the farmers. In this way, we can not only feed the world but also have a more healthy life style.
Therefore, Louise Fresco suggests that we should go back to the rural life when the time food is more authentic and natural but with the help of small-scale mechanism and modern science to relieve the burden of the farmers. In this way, we can not only feed the world but also have a more healthy life style.
Re: ISG 0816 How to Feed the Whole World
staple[c]: basic food; a food that is needed and used all the time; a food that is basic and important in people's everyday lives
ex: staples like flour, bread, and rice
ex: Fish is a staple in the diet of many Africans.
ex: staples like flour, bread, and rice
ex: Fish is a staple in the diet of many Africans.