The Food Machine

The video links for this work can be found under the menu “Classified Videos (by Subject)”.  Students should pursue the links to videos within sections found under this menu, and then proceed to respond to the questions found here.

Over the past 10,000 years humanity has dramatically changed in the way we live and our interactions with one another.  These cultural changes have largely been a result of the impact of agriculture on the way were are able to live.  And…as agriculture has dramatically changed in the past 100 years, we can expect that the way we live here on earth will also dramatically change.  Some evidence of this can be found in this video about our Food Machine.

As you view the video consider what it has to say about the following questions:

1. Where do Americans get the food that they eat?
2. What is the pathway of the various food ingredients that end up in a Domino’s Pizza?
3. How many pounds of tomatoes are grown on one acre of farmland in California’s Central Valley?
4. What is the source of water for these farms in California’s Central Valley?
5. How much corn is grown today on a Kansas farm compared with what farms produced in the 1930s?
6. How has irrigation changed farming?
7. What food products is corn an important ingredient in today’s modern society?
8. How are cattle raised and processed in the 21st century Food Machine?
9. What is meant by a “globalized Food Market”?
10. How is modern produce from our farms marketed to the public?
11. How are insecticides deployed on modern farms?
12. How have genetically modified foods (GMFs) changed the modern farm?
13. How are bees involved in modern farming, and what has happened recently to the health of bees? What threat does this present to our food Machine?
14. How many people are involved in jobs related to our Food Machine? How many of these jobs involve people and machinery moving about the country?
15. What is happening with “Urban Farming” and other organic farming efforts?
16. How does the concept of sustainability related to the modern Food Machine and the alternative “organic” farming techniques?

As you look at the system within your community that provides you with the foods you and your family require, how does your systems compare to the system(s) that are illustrated in the video?