Field Trip

For my farm field trip, I went to Paradise Valley Orchard. This is one of my favorite places in Cache Valley. They work throughout the spring and the summer to bring fresh vegetables to the Cache Valley Farmer's Market, as well as apple cider for the fall months.

Ali and Loren Harrison run the farm together, with the help of different volunteers. As I was doing research for this project I did some volunteer work. It was interesting to work with the two of them because Ali was the one that was giving me instructions and telling me what to do, but Loren was always there to answer the more technical questions. 

Helping them with their farm was the highlight of my semester. I helped them to clean out their fridge to get ready for the apple harvest, because of the regulations that happen in order for them to be able to sell their cider. Another of my favorite things that I got to help with was harvest of flowers for the farmers market. Because, I've always been interested in flowers and putting them in arrangements, so being able to do that while helping Ali and Loren out with the farmers market was great. 

I learned a lot about the process of transplanting and how the plants get from the seed room to the ground. The biggest thing that I've learned is that the plant needs to be pushed down because it gets an air pocket between the ground and the roots and it doesn't do very well. 

Overall, I loved working with them and learning so much about the small farm business and how they get so much support from the community. 

Pop Culture Review

When tasked with finding a work of pop culture to analyze for this weeks blog post, I wanted to do something that I was interested in, but also that was in the realm of this assignment. I think it is important to think about art and farming in our time, not only in the past. That is why I chose to analyze Disney World's Landscaping and Hydroponic Garden. These works of art can be found in Florida at Disney's Epcot Center. They use plants from all continents (excluding Antarctica) as well as from over 50 countries. The gardens at Epcot cover a 47 square mile radius and include theme parks, hotels, golf coursels, hydroponics, as well as campgrounds. 

These are just a few selections from a wide variety that show what Disney is doing with flowers, but also with gardening and farming. Instead of being a traditional farm with rows and tractors, they have a new take on farming vegetables. By growing things hydroponically, they are reducing their need for land, as well as making things easier to harvest by having the fruit dangle down below the vines. This way they can put the pumpkin shapers on them to make it into the distinct Mickey Mouse head shape. They also take so much care in everything they plant, as evidenced by the third photo, where they just planted lettuce in the hydroponic greenhouse, but they took so much care in planting it into the Mickey shape. 

I like taking the concepts that we have been learning about how to analyze works of art, and appreciating the works of art in farming that we have in our lifetime. Farming is still a very prevalent profession, but it make take on different forms than we are expecting from the pictures of farms that we have in our minds from the past.

Food, Inc Review

Food Inc:

1.    Production Information: The film was made by Robert Kenner and it premiered on April 21, 2010. There were many farms and people that let the filmmaker in and let them film. The full list is:

1.    Richard Lobb 
Vince Edwards
Carole Morison
Troy Roush
Larry Johnson
Allen Trenkle
Patricia Buck
Barbara Kowalyck
Representative Diana DeGette
Representative Phil English 
Eldon Roth
The Orozco Family
Rosa Soto and Healthy Teens on the Move
Joel Salatin
Eduardo Peña
Gary Hirshberg
Lilac Ridge Farm
Wal-Mart
Moe Parr
David Runyon
Stephen R. Pennell 
William P. Kealey

2.    Plot Summary: This movie is about production of raw food (chicken breast size, etc.) It focuses on the fact that our food production methods have changed dramatically in the last 50 years compared to the thousands of years before. The goals of food production companies now is more output, less input and that creates problems in the industry. This film focuses on the fact that these changes come from science and technology, but they have negative side effects that the industry doesn’t think about. The food supply of the world in in crisis, but he thinks that this could be changed with a change in demand.

 Review:I was expecting to be shocked by the information that was presented in the movie, but I wasn’t expecting to be totally grossed out by what was shown on the screen. Robert Kenner does his job of showing the reality of different food industries in a very dramatic and poignant way. He doesn’t stray away from many of the uncomfortable truths that he discovered in his research. He goes over a lot of different industries and how they affect each and every person in our nation. One of the first things that he goes over is how fast food has changed our nation and how our food is gathered. People are wanting to get their food faster and easier than ever before, which makes it so there is more demand on our farmers and makes them use more questionable methods to gather that food. He shows the horror of some slaughterhouses and even some farms. These conditions were very horrific to see. Knowing many farmers from my home this part really concerned me. I know personally that the farmers that I know are just doing the best they can and they aren’t out to make animals lives miserable, they are just trying to make a living the only way they know how. That is what I didn’t agree with this movie. Farmers and ranchers aren’t cruel people (on the whole) but many of these animals were bred with the specific purpose of being food animals. There is a reason that our bodies can digest these foods and a reason why they have many of the essential nutrients that our bodies need. I think that is the inherent problem with our food industry is that people want too much of a good thing. If people didn’t over eat then there wouldn’t be a need for a lot of the cruelty that we see in the food industry. There was a concerning story however about E-coli and a little child who died from e-coli contaminated meat. That is something that is not okay. When people buy their food from a grocery store they shouldn’t have to be concerned that they or their children are going to get sick from it. I am glad that his mother raised a concern and got the law changed in order to make everyone safer when they buy their food. Overall I loved learning about the different aspects of the food industry. I am glad I had the background that I did so I could see both sides objectively and realize that there are things that we can change about how we get our food. 

Legislating Agriculture

There are many different aspects to the farm bill. A lot of money is involved in it and it is a highly personal topic for many different people.

One of the most highly controversial topics about the farm bill is the use of money for the food stamps and nutrition program. It is controversial because many people use this money as their only means of getting food for their entire family.

The new farm bill changed the program slightly. It lowered the funding by 8 billion in 10 years. By lowering the funding, they will also have to tighten the standards for people that are getting the assistance.

They way they plan to do this is by restricting the amount of money that households have been getting because the state has been saying that their heating bill is more than it actually was. They are also going to try to encourage people that are on assistance to get a job so that they will be able to earn enough money to get off of the welfare program. The last thing they are going to do is make sure that people that don't need the program aren't taking advantage of it.

There are many other parts of the farm bill that are being changed, but these are the most important changes with the farm bill regarding the food stamp program.

Cox, J. (n.d.). The $956 billion farm bill, in one graph. Retrieved October 26, 2015.

Folklore

The example of folklore that I chose to examine for this assignment is the farmers daughter joke that is found on page 236 of Farm: A multimodal reader. This joke is about a farmers daughter that wants to sleep with a man that is visiting the farm. The man won't do anything with her because he was running for county sheriff and didn't want anything making it so he wouldn't win. Then, she goes out to the barn and lets the bull in to the cows while they are in heat so they could mate and the bull doesn't want anything to do with the cows. She gets upset and asks the bull if he is running for county sheriff too.

This is an example of oral folklore. In the story, there are a lot of uhs and ums, that indicate the story was told to someone who wrote it down exactly as they heard. There is even a time when a listener interjects into the story. 

This example of folklore helps us understand farming more because it deals with the fact that farmers daughters were shown more as objects to look at than as hard workers like their mothers. Once those daughters got married they were shown more as hardworking homesteaders. 

Another thing that this joke shows us is how common it was for children to be helping with the chores. While her family slept, the girl went out to tend to the cattle, which included letting the bull in with the cows. She was understandably upset that the bull would not breed with the cows because the cows were her family’s livelihood. If they didn’t have calves, they wouldn’t have means to live.

The people that made up this joke knew that farmers daughters were known mostly as objects and they also knew that everyone would understand the frustration of having a bull that didn’t want to produce.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

This summer I have had the opportunity to work at a local farm called Paradise Valley Orchard. This has given me a unique opportunity to see exactly how my food is produced.

I helped in the entire process of food production.

First, I prepared soil blocks from coir and a peat mix. After that, I planted 3 seeds of lettuce in each soil block. Then, the soil blocks go under a heat lamp for 3 weeks to germinate the seeds and give them a head start on growth. When the seedlings get about 2 inches tall I moved them to 3x3 pots. Then, those go back under the heat lamp. After growing in the post for about 3 weeks, we start the process of hardening off. This means putting the plants outside to get them used to the temperature of the air and the soil so when it gets planted it doesn't get shocked. Then I transplanted the plants outside. They grew and we watched them to see when they were ready to harvest. After harvesting the heads of lettuce, I washed them, mixed them up and then put them in bags to sell at the farmer's market. Because I helped at the farm, I got to take some home and eat it. It was delicious.

I loved helping at the farm because it meant so much to be able to know exactly where my food was coming from. The food seemed to taste better because I helped with every step of the process. Plus, I knew it was healthy!

Tracing My Farming Roots

My family has been involved in agriculture for a long time. There have even been books written about my family in their small farming community of Burlington, Wyoming. This has set a great example for me in how agriculture affects my life today. My dad and my grandpa are both great examples of how to let agriculture into your life in different ways and they have both used both modern and historical ways of farming and ranching.

My grandpa is a rancher in Burlington, Wyoming. He only has about 100 head of cattle, but this was made possible by crops being developed to grow in less tolerable areas than before. In the 1850’s alfalfa started being grown on the west coast, and that made it so people in Wyoming were able to use those processes to grow it there.

Because of the example that my grandfather had on my dad he knew when he left home that he still wanted to have some connection to the land. So because commercial farms started growing bigger and smaller farms have become more rare, we were able to buy a small plot of land that is good for growing small amounts of food for us, and plenty of food for our horses.

Modern farming differs in many different ways than farming long ago, but the feeling behind it is just the same. Farmers are a breed of people that know how to work hard and how to get things done. Because of modern technology we are able to do that in a bigger setting, but the basic principles of relying on the land and being grateful for what we have will not go away, no matter how big the commercial farms become. I am grateful for the chance we have to look at the past and to appreciate the future.