ENVS 120 - Agri-Food Systems in Transition

FC SSCI

4 credits
In our 21^st century world, about half of the Earth’s habitable land area and 70 percent of the Earth’s available freshwater resources are committed to agricultural production. However a growing body of evidence suggests that our conventional food production systems, linked to globalized commodity markets, are structured and managed in ways that are ecologically unsustainable and socially unjust. The dominant industrial food system contributes to the depletion of soil, groundwater, nutrients, fossil energy, and genetic resources, and is a major contributor to air and water pollution, chronic illness, food insecurity, and climate change.

In this freshman-level course, students will critically examine both conventional and alternative/regenerative agricultural systems. Students will explore multiple perspectives on the intersection of socio-economic, geopolitical, technological, ecological, and cultural factors that link agriculture to our world’s most pressing environmental, health, and social justice challenges, and that place strategies for broad-scale transitioning of agro-food systems at the forefront of the global sustainability agenda. Drawing upon values and principles governing agroecology as a field of study, practice, and a global movement, we will examine how stakeholder-led initiatives to reinvent agri-food systems in diverse bioregional contexts are yielding ecologically sound alternatives to industrial agriculture, both domestically and abroad. We will explore the topic of agri-food system transition through lectures, assigned readings, in-class review of selected case studies, research and writing, and field trips to local farms.
Does this course require off campus field trips? Yes

This course is appropriate for new students.
Sustainability