When people are ignorant to the ways of growing their own food they will be helpless when tragedy strikes. “In total, 31 percent of all U.S. households … participated in food gardening in 2008.” (NGA 6). If nuclear fallout or a natural disaster were to occur, it seems as though, the remaining 69 percent of households would starve to death. As society evolves into consuming fast food and relying on grocery stores to provide sustenance; people become unstable, unhealthy and unable to provide for their own families. From the beginning of documented history, people dedicated their entire lives to learn about natural resources and how to provide for themselves in expectation that no one else would. Although there may be bigger concerns in the prevention of nuclear fallout or another ice age, it is naïve to believe that in the occurrence of such an event we could thrive without having any sincere knowledge of self-sustainability. There are 5 fundamentals that should be emphasized in schools to prevent this lack of education, and we already have the knowhow.
People have come a long way in farming and basic horticulture since the time of Homer in 1200 B.C. As Professor Freeman S. Howlett states in his notes for his Horticulture 805 class: “the medical knowledge apparent in the Iliad and the Odyssey involved the use of drugs. Farmers had learned to use dung to increase fertility of their fields.”(His. And Lit). In 800 B.C. there was a man referred to as Hesoid who produced one of the very first farmer’s almanacs. Providing information to his negligent brother, this almanac educates how to maintain his own lively-hood should Hesoid become unable to provide it for him. Hippocrates who lived from 460-375 B.C. started the Hippocratic revo...
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...tional Gardening Association. The Impact of Home and Community Gardening in America. South Burlington: National Gardening Association, Inc. 2009. Web 11 November 2011
National Gardening Association’s (NGA) research report “The Impact of Home and Community Gardening in America” (2009), informs that there is low percentage of involvement in food gardening within the household and almost no school programs pertaining to gardening available for children and young adults. The NGA supports this information with various polls and interviews of over 36 million people. The NGA provides this information in order to shed light on the desires of people in home gardening and the conflicting realities lying within. Due to the un-persuadable facts about food gardens and their percentages nation-wide; gardeners, parents and statisticians are the focused audience of this report.
This study shows the importance on how America is being affected in a bad way, because of unsustainable foods. Unsustainable foods are not just hurting America as a whole, but could be affecting you. According, to the CSA “Many children in the US have developed life-threatening allergies to peanuts and other foods”. This is because, of food unsustainability. This study will give an insight on how sustainable foods are helping America rather than unsustainable foods. This idea will help turn America away from heading down the wrong path which is uns...
Before the land of what we no class Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and other countries in the middle east grains, such as wheat and wild barley, could be seen growing in the wild without human hand to cultivate and nurture it (Authors 2007). Over time, humans began to recognize the benefit of the plants and began the first signs of human agriculture. The skill of farming took time and trial and error, but along the way, humans began to settle down to tend to their crops. Though the first crops were nothing more than seed s thrown about without rhyme or reason to the process we know today such as fields having, rows and sorting out the seeds to create a higher yield each harvest (Authors 2007). Because of the trial and error process, agriculture of plants did not take place of a short period but took many, many years to evolve to what we know today as agriculture; the new fa...
School gardens are being implemented in elementary, middle, and some high schools around the country to provide a valuable hands-on learning experience for students. The increasing number of food-related problems in today's society, such as obesity, eating disorders, diseases, and a general disconnect from food sources, have contributed to these schools' desire to develop awareness and understanding in coming generations. The schools have been using gardens to bring children closer to the food they eat, by teaching planting, nourishing, harvesting and cooking the food they grow. The gardens also provide an education process by which teachers can teach many other subjects. Overall, research has shown that children whose schools use gardening as part of their curriculum have a better understanding of agricultural and natural ecosystems, a more educated and positive attitude towards the environment, and a more enhanced learning experience in core subjects such as reading, math, and science. At many studied schools, however, it was reported that gardening did not have an effect on the eating habits of children. Although school gardens have been highly successful in schools that use them, there are still challenges these schools must overcome for their gardens to be fully effectual.
Agriculture is not all work and no play. Many advances can be made in the understanding of agriculture by making available a variety of methods to provide children with a hands-on experience and also educating all individuals about the importance of the practice. The ignorance of urban communities can be overcome with the help of organizations and people within the community. School visits, hands-on experiences, volunteers and organizations are just a few examples of the steps that can be taken to educate Americans about agriculture and close the gap between rural and urban populations.
Jekyll,G.(2011),Home and Garden: Notes and Thoughts, Practical and Critical,of a Worker in Both.New York,Cambridge University Press.
Remember when there used to be a kitchen garden in every house? And how the mouth watered at the sight of luscious fruits hanging from the trees? As we grew urbaner, the culture of gardening got lost as did the wide open spaces. While most urban inhabitants aren’t green enthusiasts, those who yearn for it don’t go beyond hanging pots or decorating their window ledges. But why let space constraints limit the penchant for gardening?
I am always busy between classes, projects, homework and other school related work, I usually do not take time for myself or think about issues that should concern me. This community gardening class has made me aware of the needs for sustainable gardening. Because our food, our land, our environment and our well living has been impacted negatively. The use of pesticides, herbicides and inorganic fertilizers has resulted of our land to be polluted. Gardening has many positive effects included, stress-reliever, improving team-working skills (use in community hardening), and create stronger communities. If humans want to live on Earth for much longer, we need to create ways to grow food without making land useless for agriculture and Earth
Transition: We all know that save money is a major benefit for, but that is not all that gardening can do.
What is a community garden and why are they critical in keeping a neighborhood in good shape? A community garden consists of an area that grows nutritious substances, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, for local citizens to enjoy. These gardens, in return, can contribute to a safer neighborhood, and improve the health standards for people in communities. However, it is important to note that managing and growing a garden that is open to the public can be a challenge. Volunteers are a necessity to keep a community garden open. A solution to motivate individuals to start a garden and take proper care of it is to provide local incentives for the community. If by using the local incentives, the community will be encouraged to do a wonderful
How people survive is adapted over time. Through cultivation, the idea of intentionally promoting the growth of certain plants for human use, many societies are able to support more people within their community. Creating a smart and effective way to feed the entire society benefits the society as a whole. With new innovations and techniques cultivation emerged independently in different parts of the world. When comparing horticulture with agriculture the two understand and incorporate cultivation by devoting their time to improve and stabilize the production of crops. Both acquired techniques are adopted to reproduce and support the community. However, they can be contrasted and compared from the different techniques used and how effective
Agriculture has been around for about 11,000 years. Around 9.500 BC, the first signs of crops began to show up around the coastlines of the Mediterranean. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the first crops that started to show up in this area, with barley, peas, lentils, chick peas, and flax following shortly. For the most part, everyone was a nomad and just travelled along with where a herd went. This went on until around 7.000 BC, and then the first signs of sowing and harvesting appeared in Mesopotamia. In the first ...
The Neolithic Agrarian Revolution was the world’s first historically confirmable revolution in agriculture. It was the progression of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, which was supported with a big increasing population. This agriculture involved the domestication of plants and animals, which developed around 9,500 B.C. During this age various types of plants and animals derived in different locations all over the world. It converted the small groups of hunters and gatherers into more intelligent agricultural people. Those groups then formed into sedentary societies that built towns and villages, while they also altered they natural environment around them by food-crop fertilization. Therefore, allowing them to have an abundance for their food production. Just these few developments have provided high population density settlements, complex labor diversification, trading economics, the development of portable art, architecture, culture, centralized administrations and political structures, hierarchical ideologies, and systems of knowledge.
The majority of people do not know or realize what good can come from growing organic food, but I’ve come to realize the gains that can come from learning and applying the knowledge. Gardening and growing food have been part of our lives since humans first began cultivating food (Oijala 1). According to Learning Library and the National Gardening Association, thirty five percent of all households in America, or forty-two million households, are growing food at home or in a community garden, and that has gone up by seventeen percent in five years. These numbers need to keep going up if we want people to live healthier and happier lives. When growing fruits and vegetables in the back yard in the garden, people are doing better than they realized.
The first people that started to depend on farming for food were in Israel and Jordan in about 80000 B.C.. Farming became popular because people no longer had to rely on just searching for food to get their food. In about 3000 B.C. Countries such as Egypt and Mesopotamia started to develop large scale irrigation systems and oxen drawn plows. In about 500 B.C. the Romans started to realize that the soil needed certain nutrients in order to bare plants. They also realized that if they left the soil for a year with no plants, these important nutrients would replenish. So they started to leave half of a field fallow (unplanted). They then discovered that they could use legumes, or pulses to restore these vital nutrients, such as nitrogen, to the soil and this started the process known as rotating crops. They would plant half the field one year with a legume...
One of the most complex issues in the world today concerns human population. The number of people living off the earth’s resources and stressing its ecosystem has doubled in just forty years. In 1960 there were 3 billion of us; today there are 6 billion. We have no idea what maximum number of people the earth will support. Therefore, the very first question that comes into people’s mind is that are there enough food for all of us in the future? There is no answer for that. Food shortage has become a serious problem among many countries around the world. There are many different reasons why people are starving all over the world. The lack of economic justice and water shortages are just merely two examples out of them all.