HIS109Y1 Study Guide - Final Guide: Food Security, Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, Fairtrade Certification
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GGR107 Final Exam Notes
WEEK 1
THREE SISTERS corn, beans, squash
- Indigenous agricultural practice
- Grew together naturally
FOOD CRISIS not being able to feed the population
- Some countries have food export bans
- Stockpiling food
Ex. U.K. can no longer feed itself (high population, low agricultural production)
WORLDVIEW perspective/perception
- Affected by: relationship to nature, “human nature”, time orientation, individual vs. collective,
religion/spirituality, doing + being, politics/economics
- Dependent on context/altered by culture
- Beliefs to Values to Behaviour to Perceptions to Worldview
WEEK 2
STEREOTYPE a widely held, but fixed and over-simplified image or idea of a particular type of person
or thing
DISCRIMINATION the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things,
especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex
STRUCTURAL OPPRESSION the systematic mistreatment of people that maintains a hierarchy, based
on race, class, sexuality/another group of identities
Ex. Oppression in Education = curriculum undermining Aboriginal values (teachers accusing students of
cheating, when they are just cooperating with each other in ways encouraged in their society)
CRITICAL THINKING “the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe;
including the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking” (Lau)
- “reasonable, reflective thinking that is focused on deciding on what to believe or do”
- How to Think Critically determine claims, context, kinds or reasoning, types of evidence, evaluate
argument
A PRIORI REASONING arguments based on pre-existing knowledge
- Defining terms
- Logical arguments (based on proven or accepted premises)
- Arguments based on First Principles
A POSTERIORI REASONING arguments based on observation
- Qualitative = anecdotes, testimony
- Quantitative = experimentation, statistical information
MORAL/ETHICAL REASONING arguments based on values
Ex. right, fair, beautiful, etc.
RACIALIZATION the process through which “race: (and its associated meanings) is attributed to
someone or something
- A problem in securing equitable food system
- In the past, food systems have abused people of colour
Ex. the Colonial food system + slavery
INDIGENOUS FOOD SOVEREIGNTY the newest and most innovative approach to achieving the end
goal of long-term food security in Indigenous communities
- Provides a model for social learning (promotes the application of traditional knowledge, values,
wisdom, practices in the present-day context)
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- 4 Main Principles Sacred/Divine Sovereignty (food is a gift from the creator), Participation
(people should have healthy relationships with the land and its products), Self-determination (the
freedom and ability to respond to our own needs for healthy, culturally-adapted Indigenous foods),
Legislation and Policy (adhering to colonial laws, policies, mainstream economic activities—cross-
sectoral)
WEEK 3
THE FOOD SYSTEM consists of structures, networks, processes, and practices through which the
production, transformation, communication, representation, consumption, disposal, and recycling of food
takes place
- When this cycle is open, things more to and from the land
Creates the need for Inputs (such as chemical fertilizers) and Outputs (food, waste) that
reduce the ability of the system to be regenerative
Water leaves places embedded in produce (a problem in arid environments), chemical
fertilizers are non-renewable, animal waste from intensive hog farms
- MONOCULTURE single crops are cultivated, limited biodiversity
- Food travels enormous distances (globally); food is greatly transformed for travel and convenience of
the consumer
DOMINANT FOOD SYSTEM mainstream, conventional; the main and ruling/commanding/authoritative
system through which people get food
Ex. most people today purchase their food from grocery stores
ALTERNATIVE FOOD SYSTEM food systems that present themselves as different; includes short food
chains, fair trade, organic, local, traditional food, slow food (locally-sourced, prepared organically, etc.)
RECENT FOOD REGIMES food regimes since the 18th century
1) COLONIAL
- Spatially extensive (more territory)
- Extension of colonialism (raw products from “periphery” to “core”, then sold back to the
periphery as value-added goods)
- Challenges = changing regulations of trade, human rights concerns (such as slavery)
2) INDUSTRIAL
- Spatially intensive (less territory, more production from within the same territory)
- Even more globalized system than Colonial (technology, import/export system)
- Challenges = dealing with surplus, environmental concerns, wanting to feed everyone
3) POST-INDUSTRIAL
- Flexible (more nuanced production, just-in-time delivery)
- Globalized, highly corporate supply chains
- Emergence of niche products for elite consumption
4) Corporate ownership structure
COMMODITY FETISHISM Karl Marx
- Economists forget the course of the value of commodities—human labour—and describe the world
as if things trade without human agency
- Failing to see that only capitalist production treats goods in this way (mystifies real social relations)
FOOD COMMODITY CHAIN
- Significant production, distribution, and consumption nodes, and the connecting links between them,
together with social, cultural, and natural conditions involved in commodity movements
- Suppliers to Producers to Wholesalers to Processors to Retailers to Consumers
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS/BIOPHYSICAL FACTORS ON FOOD PRODUCTION
- Access to solar energy for photosynthesis
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- Temperature
- Water availability and quality
- Soil characteristics
- Inherent biological characteristics of plants and animals
WEEK 4: SUGAR & TEA
TACTICS TO MAXIMIZE PROFIT
- Increase yield (grow more per acre)
- Reduce costs (efficient processing, reduced labour)
- Increase value (create products for wealthy people)
- Vertical/Horizontal Integration (buying competitors and suppliers, increasing control)
- Appropriation (adding items to beginning or end of chain—Ex. “ready-made” foods, fertilizers)
- Substitution (replace one input or product with another)
TRANSITION THEORY links changes in production methods to shifts in market demand for
environmentally sustainable, health-promoting, ethically sensitive methods, and policy perspectives that
promote such considerations
- PRODUCTIVISM POST-PRODUCTIVISM
Ex. Productivism = Current Sugar Industry
Ex. Post-Productivism = New American Tea Industry
GENDERING SUGAR in a post-colonial era, agriculture has become subsumed to the dominance of
transnational, global capital where women in modern sugar industries experience a dual process of
disempowerment
1) Invisibility as labour of value
2) Exploitation and subordination in the process of labour extraction
- Gendered power on sugar estates
- Rural spaces where sugar is farmed experience ideologies of masculinity that render female labour
invisible (because they are subordinate to men)
- Women who used to have a place in the household work on sugar estates (profit-driven)
BOSTON TEA PARTY (“BREWING A NEW AMERICAN TEA INDUSTRY”)
- Tea rides the tide of new eco-centric production practices in response to a new market (focused on
quality, healthy people, and a healthy environment)
- Previous Market = low labour costs due to primarily female field labourers/highly mechanized
methods, chemical applications, top-down corporate control
- There has been a significant shift (unlike in the sugar industry)
WEEK 5: GRAINS
WILD RICE
- No pest-control
- Traditional Indigenous practice
- People considering genetic patenting of wild rice (becoming a larger industry, mass-manufactured
paddy crop—there is now a domesticated version of wild rice and it is now over 95% paddy-grown)
- Niche market ($21 million industry)
- This caused the Ojibwe—who started the industry—to lose most of their livelihood, and they fought
back on misleading advertising, etc.
- There is now a law in Minnesota about labelling paddy rice
- Huge problem with water levels in the natural Minnesota wild rice stands
- Large-scale Indigenous agricultural operations
- Lack of multi-purpose subsistence activities
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