Summary Of Food And The City By Jennifer Cockrell-King

Traditionally, the produce we buy in a grocery store is grown miles away from the city in which it was purchased. Sometimes, it may even originate across the country. Food and the City by Jennifer Cockrell-King explores an emerging concept referred to as "urban agriculture". A host of problems exist within industrial agriculture, such as green house emission from transportation, inadequate food supplies, and an abundance of processed, unhealthy foods. Urban agriculture is a system in which cities across the globe are counteracting industrial agriculture by finding ways to grow fresh produce locally, within their own cities (Cockrill-King 2012, 9). Through creativity, research, and practice, people have found ways to grow foods in backyards,
Genetic engineering has been a useful technique to change the characteristic of crops. Through genetic modification, favorable traits such as resilience and resistance to insects can be amplified within a species. In some areas of the planet, this sort of experimentation has been the difference between fruitful harvests and starvation. Some areas are so dry and desolate that citizens have struggled to provide adequate food for survival. Genetically engineering crops has allowed people to grow food in areas that were otherwise barren. But toying with genetics can be risky: when changing the genetics of a plant species, the repercussions can be unpredictable. Altering a gene in a plant in order to produce a specific outcome can sometimes create a host of other unpredicted outcomes. Genetically engineered foods are not thoroughly tested before being deeming safe for the market. In the long term, we have no idea what these franken-foods are doing to our bodies, as no serious testing has been done (Domingo 2000). Although genetically engineered crops can be beneficial to areas in which natural species are almost impossible to grow, there simply isn't enough scientific evidence to decide whether or not the risks are worth the
Ethiopia is well known as a nation of famine. Despite the overwhelming poverty of its citizens, land in Ethiopia is frequently leased or sold to rich nations in order to farm. Approximately thirty tons of produce is farmed in Ethiopia every day, but none of this goes to its starving citizens. Instead, it is sent to countries of the Middle East (Cockrill-King 2012, 65). Although thirteen million citizens of Ethiopia are not currently getting enough food, most produce is exported to other, richer countries. Ethiopia isn't the only country suffering; across the globe, over 125 million acres are being farmed outsourced to rich nations (Cockrill-King 2012, 66). Because many developed nations have industrialized beyond their means, they now rely on the cheap, fertile farmlands of other