Food articles

Cheap Food: Workers Pay the Price

"Cheap Food" talked about America's want to produce incredibly low-priced food and how the farmers pay for that want. Many of the farm workers die from heat stress because they are undocumented and aren't guaranteed any form of benefits or even basic necessities, (such as water). It talks about how sever heat related deaths happen a year but many of them go unrecorded since the companies that own the farms don't want to be found out for having undocumented workers, or anyone in general, die on their watch.

Fields of Poison: California Farm workers and Pesticides

"Fields of Poison" looked into the effects of pesticide poisoning and how often farmers especially were poisoned by pesticides. It went on to discuss how California is one of the few states to be gathering information on pesticide poisoning because it is one of the few states that have farmers that are wiling to give up the little they have and advocate for themselves. It also talked about how many safety regulations don't apply to farmers and how they don't have adequate protection from all of the chemicals they work with.

The Scope of the World Food Crisis

"The Scope of the World Food Crisis" discussed the issue of starvation and why some countries can no longer afford to grow their own food, (similar subject to "The Financial Crisis and World Hunger"). It talked about how rising oil prices make it difficult for farmers to afford some of the same materials they once used. It also discussed how the majority of farms in the world are owned by the same four or so companies.

The Financial Crisis and World Hunger

"The Financial Crisis and World Hunger" was mainly about prices on certain foods and how people in impoverished countries especially cannot afford to even grow their own food anymore. It talked a lot about micro-loans, which are basically tiny loans, (sometimes only a couple of dollars) which are basically used in order to start a small business. Micro-loans were started by Muhammad Yunus, (who later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize).

If I had to look into one of these topics in particular, I would probably look more into "Fields of Poison". I am a pretty big advocate for organic food so reading about the effects of pesticides, not only on the body but on people in general, would probably be rather interesting to me. I don't necessarily think that this article ranks above all of the others, I think all of these issues are important, especially the ones about starvation. My reason for picking it is the fact that it is the shortest article by a long shot. There is so little research on pesticide poisoning that the article barely covered three pages and half of one of those pages was covered by a giant graph, so it's probably closer to two pages. I think that more research needs to be done about pesticide poisoning so it will no longer be a topic that is completely brushed under the rug by big food companies.