Welcome to this blog!

I am happy to say that I start this blog with much excitement and anticipation. Still, it is a kind of nervous excitement because it is the first time I am actually attempting to consolidate my own thoughts and opinions about a particular topic that is very close to my heart and like anyone, I would love to get it right.

But with those feelings of uncertainty aside, this would probably be one of the more interesting things (to me) that I have done so far in my life :)

The Topic & its Relation to this Course:

The course for which this blog has been setup for is GEOG3057 Global Environmental Change. This blog is about agriculture and the environment. It aims to investigate the relationship between agriculture and our global environment by understanding the different ways in which agriculture has contributed to environmental change in various aspects on the global scale and how the global environment (changing as it is) has and is predicted to affect agriculture. Ultimately, as the title of this blog suggests, I would like to find out a little more about what we should do to address the challenges agriculture faces in the years ahead.

To guide myself and the reader along, here are some questions I hope to answer through the weeks ahead (through reading and reviewing of academic literature):

These are probably subject to change as I read up more and more about this topic!

Past:

How has agriculture evolved?

What impact has this evolution had on the global environment?

To what extent has modern agriculture been detrimental to the environment?

Present & Future:

What influence does the global environment have, and is predicted to have, on agriculture in light of recent climate change?

What is the way forward in the field of agriculture in light of climate change and other global issues (E.g. Poverty, Health, Conservation, Animal welfare etc.)?

 

Personal Rationale for this Topic

(Forgive the story-telling here… just like to share a little about my interests toward this topic. Perhaps it might strike a chord with some you ;))

A reason why I chose this topic is because it is the convergence of two of my biggest interests: health and the environment (hence my training as an Environmental Biologist I guess). What makes these interests so personal to me is that any conclusions I come to about them could and should affect my everyday living in terms of my food choices etc. Afterall food and the environment are the two most basic things which facilitate our survival. 

Through the past two years in university, my own reading and exploration alongside taught modules in university have brought me through a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions in relation to this topic: excitement (when I think I was fortunate to read about/ find some wisdom/truth that should be shared to help others), confusion/despair (when I seem to find  contradicting pieces of evidence and can't figure out how to make sense of them- this has been probably the most dominant emotion so far).  Here's an example: recently, a curve-ball has been thrown at the dominant school of nutrition. It says that the 'paleodiet' (i.e. more good quality animal meat & fat and less bad quality carbohydrates) is actually what makes a healthy lifestyle(when coupled to exercise of course). However from the environmental standpoint of view, this does not seem to be feasible/ responsible given the amount of environmental resources (e.g. fertilisers → plants → animal feed → humans) and the amount of pollution that results (e.g. greenhouse gases, nitrate pollution in the land etc.). Hence does this mean then that if every one (all 7 billion (!) people on Earth) were to subscribe to the healthy paleo diet, our Earth would basically would crumble? Put it plainly: if one tries to be healthy, does that mean he necessarily is harming the environment and vice versa?

Perhaps we are looking for a missing link between human health and environmental health (which once again converges on the topic of agriculture) or perhaps somewhere along the way there has been inaccuracies in the theories. This is something that I would really love to delve further to clarify these questions that I have. In any case, I would say that because this topic is something I'm convicted/enthusiastic about through various influences (academic, cultural and ethical), it is inevitable that  I have already formed a pre-understanding/hypothesis/stand on the matter. It is as follows:

"Since Man is dependent on and part of nature (environment), whatever is best for nature would be best for Man(health). Hence the development or nature is not contrary to the development of human society i.e. the two are not mutually exclusive. (If it helps, this is a 'co-evolutionist' ethical perspective on the human-environment relationship.)"

However, I hope this blog would be a platform for me to test this hypothesis, and not so much to prove it.  I hope not to let my pre-understanding  shape the evidence but allow the evidence to correct my pre-understanding where necessary i.e. take the evidence as objectively as possible. The reason why I am making this preunderstanding/ prejudice of mine explicit is that I hope you, the reader can keep it in check and guide me in this area.

On a side note... here's another reason why I am excited to start this blog:

Through my university education, I have enjoyed being exposed to scientific knowledge and ways of thinking. In the process, I have felt my own thought-processes developing more than ever before. However, I am still unable to communicate them well to others (especially in speech). Hence this is a skill which I would really love to hone in the coming 3rd year- and what a better way to practice than to blog regularly about a subject I love! So I hope you would join me on this journey and please do comment on my posts.. any critiques would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again for visiting this blog and reading my lengthy first post! (I hope to become more succinct as the days go by haha...)