Concept Caching: Soybean Agriculture in Presho, South Dakota

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all  Geography classes.

This image submitted by Erin Fouberg provides a visualization of the scale and landscapes of crop agriculture in the United States.  The companion image description offers insight into this landscape and details over the two types of crop agriculture in this region.  It is also an interesting visual companion to some of the issues raised in the post, “Geographies of Green Diets.”

“Driving across the semiarid ranchlands of western South Dakota, I noticed the presence of a crop in the landscape that was recently found only in the eastern, moister region of the state: soybeans.

I called a colleague who works in agriculture at South Dakota State University to ask, “When did the cattle ranchers of western South Dakota start growing soybeans?” He replied, “When the soy biodiesel plants started popping up in Nebraska and Kansas and when genetically modified soybeans made it possible to grow the crop here.” He explained the development of Roundup Ready soybeans, a particular genetically modified soybean that can grow in more arid regions of the country. First, you plant the soybean; then you use an airplane to spray Roundup, a common weed killer that is manufactured by the company that produces the Roundup Ready soybeans, over the field. The application of Roundup over the entire field saves a lot of time and energy for the farmers because the genetically modified soybeans are resistant to the Roundup, but the weeds are killed. Monsanto, the company that produces Roundup, has developed soybeans, corn, cotton, and other crops that are resistant to Roundup.

Counter to the genetically modified Roundup Ready crops, organic agriculture —the production of crops without the use of synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers—is also on the rise in North America. In wealthier parts of the world, the demand for organic products has risen exponentially in recent years. Sales of organic food in the United States, for example, went from under $200 million in 1980 to $1.5 billion by the early 1990s to over $10 billion by 2003 and $17.8 billion in 2007. Organic foods are now about 3 percent of all food sales in the country. The growth rate is so strong that some predict organic sales will approach 10 percent of total U.S. food sales within a decade. Parts of western Europe are already approaching that figure—notably Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Germany.”

To continue reading the cache description visit the Concept Caching website.

Geographies of Green Diets

With the discursive onset of “global warming” in the global lexicon, seemingly inconsequential personal choices are subject to questions of ‘Greenness’ (Green indicating an alternative that is better for the environment than the status quo).  In a world that is increasingly linked technologically, economically, and culturally in a complicated web of globalization, your diet (what you eat, not your weight loss plan) raises convoluted issues of scale, politics and environment that are not always so easy to comprehend.

Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the questions behind a “Green Diet” is how geography is implicated in all aspects.  Whether this is a question of agricultural and land-use practices, of environmental problems or solutions, of scale from the local to global, or of socio-economic, culture or politics, each has a spatial component and consequence.

The United Nations International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management argues in a June 2010 report that, “Current patterns of production and consumption of both fossil fuels and food are draining freshwater supplies; triggering losses of economically-important ecosystems such as forests; intensifying disease and death rates and raising levels of pollution to unsustainable levels.”  The report calls for a controversial shift in global diets to reduce such environmental pressures.  This shift would be away from those including a large amount of animal-based products to those including more vegetable-based foods.  This report was certainly not the first to call for such a dietary shift, another contribution came from well-known author and activist, Michael Pollan who challenged readers to eat whole fresh foods, a little meat, and avoid processed foods.

Yet, after the UN-backed report, there seems to be a resurgence of dialogue over the greenness of our diets.  An author from the Atlantic asks, “Can Meat Eaters be environmentalists?” arguing that the two are not a contradiction.  She has also authored the New York Times article “The Carnivore’s Dilemma” researching the connection between meat and global warming.  An excellent Mother Jones article tackles the “merits of vegetarianism” by taking the question to a panel of experts and to readers, cheekily poised as “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers.”  This article is an outstanding source for both sides of the debate and includes plenty of interesting, albeit covert, geographical references from trophic structures to cultural preferences.  Another aspect of greening diets comes from the Local Foods movement, dubbed by the USDA as “Know your Farmer, Know your food”, which focuses more on where your food comes from rather that what you eat.  An NPR program and article offers a very interesting once over of the movement, but also of the economic and logistical challenges, combined with the overall reluctance of food distributors to make the change.

Overall, the underlying issues behind these questions have to do with various ‘costs’:  energy costs, food supply costs, economic costs, and environmental costs.  Each of these costs indicates difficulties that can be best understood in a holistic, interconnected way.  Indeed, geographers best understand the human-environment connections behind our diets:

-  How fossil fuel use may be translating into warmer climates;

-  How most crop agriculture is devoted to animal agriculture, creating fossil fuel and economic entanglements in between, and then topping it all off with the addition of more heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere;

-  How the economic networks associated with status quo crop and animal agriculture mean jobs, taxes, and livelihoods to large populations of Midwestern and Central United States;

-  How environmentally costly, both looking back and forward, commercial agriculture has been for native grassland ecosystems and rainforest ecosystems, freshwater supplies, and perhaps for climates throughout the globe.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you know where your food comes from or how it is produced?  When you are out at your local grocery store, favorite restaurant, school cafeteria, café, farmer’s market, etc. look for clues about where food products come from, how they are produced, and how they are delivered.
2. What do you think about the arguments made in the “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers” article?  What conclusions can you draw about which diet is greener?  What are some further questions you might have?
3. Think about the connection between food production (meat, vegetables, and processed foods) and climate.  List the various ways that production, distribution, and consumption contribute or neutralize effects on climate.

Sarah Goggin

Interrogating cleanup solutions for the Gulf oil spill

Much of the media focus has been on the plugging of the oil geyser on the ocean floor, and on the politics between BP, the national government, and local governments.  What information has been reported on the cleanup has been framed through its trials and tribulations, setbacks and sorrows.  Yet, there are some interesting proposed and enacted solutions that are not getting as much attention beyond harmful dispersants, futile shovels, soapy birdbaths and exorbitant Costner solutions.

These solution examples, one propositioned and one executed, offer very interesting critical thinking discussion topics for geography classes.  Inherent behind these contributions to aid the cleanup efforts are general questions of scale, place, diffusion/movement, and environment.  Not to mention, the countless specific questions that can be formulated regarding biogeography, marine and wetland ecosystems, ocean geographies, human-environment, political geographies, economic geographies, and more.

The first solution example is offered in a recorded demonstration that presents an ingenious, yet simple proposal for soaking up oil using innocuous, abundant hay, or dried grasses.

Discussion Questions:

1)  What are some challenges that this demonstration might have in the actual environment?  Think about diffusion both in the open ocean and on the shore.

2)  Following a refresher on the concept of scale – What are the various scale considerations in implementing this demonstration?  In particular, think of the experimental scale of the demonstration and then to its enactment at the regional scale.  Focus on the extent and degree of the oil spill, the supply and availability of the grasses/hay in the demonstration, the logistical needs of implementation, etc.

3)  Why do you think it is important that the grasses they use in the demonstration do not have any seeds?  Focus on possible environmental impacts.

A second solution is one that illustrates not only inventiveness, but decisive implementation by a small coastal town in Alabama in the face of waiting for BP’s “unified command structure” and federal government bureaucracy.

Discussion Questions:

1)  Following a refresher on the concept of scale – What are the various scale considerations that have been negotiated or considered by the actors in this article?  How are the institutions and actors at various scales portrayed and for what reasons?  Think about the political, economic and logistical arguments.

2)  What is an estuary?  What types of environmental interactions in estuaries contribute to the biodiversity found in a place like Weeks Bay?  What could oil do to such wetland ecosystems?

3)  How has wave action impeded the functioning of the BP unified command’s strand of booms?  What do you think about the possible environmental consequences of single strands of booms being the generally accepted plan?

4)  What are the two main parts of the Weeks Bay solution?  What do you think of this as an alternative solution?  Think about possible environmental, and even economic, consequences for the estuary that could accompany the semi-permanent wall of barges at the mouth of the bay, and for the possibility of closing off the bay completely if called for.

For more solutions topics, refer to the many idea articles and videos compiled by the Huffington Post.

Are We There Yet?

Issue:  Countries of the world can be classified according to level of economic development, based on a broad array of socio-economic variables. Until fairly recently, many sources simply classified nations into “developed” and “underdeveloped.” Sometimes they are referred to as the “haves” and “have nots.” There are some problems using such a simple, two-category classification. First, there is the underlying implication of superiority and inferiority of the developed nations and underdeveloped nations, respectively. Secondly, many countries do not clearly fit into either of these two broad categories.   This virtual tour using Google Earth(tm) technology allows students to analyze levels of development using the CIA World Factbook and the various categories of classification.

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss what development is.
2. Understand the difference between development indicators and indexes.
3. How do you define and measure development?

Download File: development

We Are #1! Or Are We?

Issue: Cultures can be many things, but they are certainly not static. Cultures can be changed through innovations and inventions, diffusion, acculturation, and revitalization. With the twentieth century advancement in communications, transportation, and trade, cultures in many parts of the world have become increasingly dynamic. Some nations fear an eventual loss of cultural identity with ever-increasing global interconnections.

In this Google Earth(tm) virtual tour students will read about cultural imperialism, explore different examples of cultural diffusion and appropriation, then answer questions based on what they have learned.

Learning Objectives:

1. What are local and popular cultures?
2. How are local cultures sustained?
3. How is popular culture diffused?

Download File: cultural_imperialism