LBST 2213: Sustainability and Food Systems

Dr. Jennifer Munroe

Fall 2014
Food Ecosystem Study:
For this assignment, you will trace the life cycle of a particular food item from start to
finish in the context of the ecological system/s of which it is part. That is, you will
choose a food (banana, for example), and trace its life cyclewhere it is grown, how it
is grown, what sort of labor and other resources are used at each stage of the cycle, etc
until it arrives with its consumer. You may very well choose a food that is commonly
found in our grocery stores. You may choose a food that is grown and consumed
elsewhere. You may, on the other hand, choose a food that is grown locally (even
organically) at a farm and sold at a farmers market. Any of the above is fine. To do this
assignment, then, you will need to conduct some research. The purpose of this
assignment is for you to work through the details of a particular food items life within a
system rather than thinking about the food as an object disconnected from labor and
resource use as well as consumption. In other words, you will think about the
sustainability implications (and those related in particular to social justice and equity)
of your food item.
PART ONE (100 points) (4-6 DOUBLE-SPACED pages)
For PART ONE, you will make an argument about how sustainable the food
item you chose is based on your thinking about sustainability in the context
of ALL 3 pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, AND social. Of
course, it is difficult, if not impossible, to weigh all three pillars equally (or to put that
equal treatment into practice), but your argument should try to weigh them as equally
as possible and especially to be sure to include equally the social implications of the
production and consumption of your food (issues of social justice, ethics, local and
global cultural belief systems and practices, etc).
To get to the point where you make your argument, you will first need to research the
life/production cycle of the food item you choose.
1. Research the life cycle of your food item from beginning to end (cradle to grave).
a. Where is it produced?
b. Who produces it?
c. What goes into its production (including all resources you can trace)?
d. Is your food grown conventionally, locally, in an industrialized agricultural
context, using GM seeds?
e. Where is it consumed, its end point?
f. How does it get there (again, resources?)?
g. Who consumes it, and who implicitly (if not explicitly) does not get to
consume it?
This should include everything from beginning to end, from production (even if your
food item occurs naturally, without cultivation) to consumption.
2. Second, you will want to analyze the implications of the life cycle, those of its
production and consumption.

a. How does the way your food item is produced and consumed relate to the
issues of environmental sustainability (the effects of pesticides on water
supply and animals, for example; implications of industrial versus local
farming)?
b. How does the way your food item is produced and consumed relate to the
issues of economic sustainability (for instance, the economic viability of a
food? Questions of wage distribution and/or fair wages? Farming for profit
versus for subsistence? What is at stake in corporate farming versus
farmers markets?)
c. How does the way your food item is produced and consumed relate to the
issues of sustainability especially with respect to questions of social justice
and equity we have been discussing in class (global, local economies; class,
esp poverty as relates to food deserts; the slow food movement? Ethical
issues related to its production and/or consumption, etc).
This is the part where you think about what you found, compare it with what you may
already have known, weigh the different opinions, and come up with your own.
3. Finally, for your argument (the 4-6 double-spaced pages you will turn
in), you will need to synthesize what you learned from your research and
the implications you drew from it after analyzing it further, weighing the
different variables at stake. Your argument should be in full paragraphs, driven
by your thesis about how sustainable (in a collective sense, based on the
relative environmental, economic, and social sustainability) your food item is.
Resources:
You should use a minimum of 5 sources for your ecosystem study (no set maximum). Of
these sources, at least 2 must be from peer-reviewed sources (academic
journals/books); the rest may come from more popular sources (newspapers, blogs,
company websites, etc). You will use MLA format to cite (in text and in bibliography)
your sources. Please provide a full bibliography of WORKS CONSULTED (which is
broader than just those sources you cite/use); and use in-text citations for the texts that
you paraphrase and/or cite directly (quote). Details about MLA format can be found
here:
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/08/
IMPORTANT: Your argument is to be based on your ideas that result from having an
informed opinionin other words, your sources should not speak for you. However, you
will need to cite properly ALL outside sources you consulted and used in making your
opinion informed. To consult outside sources and represent those ideas AS YOUR OWN
constitutes plagiarism. Any plagiarism cases will be subject to the most extensive
penalties university policy allows. While there should be little confusion about whether
or not you are plagiarizing in this essay because you are not to consult any outside
sources in the first place, if you are ever confused about how plagiarism is defined
please do not hesitate to ask me.
An example of the sort of broad assessment you will do in this assignment can be found
at the following link. Its based on a book titled, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the
Global Economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yYQqKxz8Tg
PART TWO (50 points) (2-3 SINGLE-SPACED pages):
For PART TWO, you will reflect on the process you employed to complete the ecosystem
study (the product).
1. Write a paragraph (or several) that details how you decided on the food item you
chose to research.
a. What went into your decision-making process? Did you, for example,
consider other food items and narrow to the one you chose?
b. How much did you feel you knew about the food item before you began to
research, and how did this previous knowledge influence your decision (if it
did)?
2. Write a paragraph (or several) that details your research process.
a. How did you find sources? Did you have difficulty? If you had any trouble,
how did you get help?
b. How did you assess the legitimacy of your sources? All sources are not
equal, of course, and their efficacy in your research depends to some extent
on the question you are asking, so how did you determine which sources
would be most useful, which least?
3. Write a paragraph (or several) about what you discovered by doing this project.
a. As you researched, what did you learn? What did your research show you
about the food items cradle-to-grave cycle that you wouldnt have known
had you not researched it in this way? In other words, what holes in your
own knowledge did this research fill?
4. Reflect (in at least one full paragraph) on how by doing this project you came to
understand a different aspect of the sustainability of that food item.
a. What did you learn about the implications of how your food item is
produced, transported, consumed that relates to the environmental
sustainability of it?
b. What did you learn about the implications of how your food item is
produced, transported, consumed that relates to the economic sustainability
of it?
c. What did you learn about the implications of how your food item is
produced, transported, consumed that relates to the social sustainability of
it?
5. Finally, write a paragraph (or several) about what you would do differently if you
were to approach this assignment anew.
a. What would you change about the way you approached the research,
synthesis of information, and/or writing of this project?
Remember: This assignment is DUE by NOVEMBER 11 at 11am on
Moodle. Any Ecosystem Study not submitted by 11am on Nov 11 will
receive a late penalty of a half-letter grade for each calendar day it is late.
Any Ecosystem Study not received by Tuesday, Nov 18 at midnight will
receive a ZERO.