Anne+T.+-+NHD+MEMO

Home

STUDENT NHD MEMOS

Essential Question: REVOLUTION, REACTION, REFORM--

At what point does helping a country out turn into a priority?

Food security can be achieved through three fundamental pillars; food availability, access to food, and food utilization. MEMO I: TOPIC PROPOSAL

The Green Revolution produced many influential idea on how to solve the problem of world hunger. As a result of it, our country has become self-sufficient in food grains, we created buffer stocks of food grains, and increased agricultural revenue because of the surplus of crops (Green Revolution, Britannica). A Great Man who flourished during this revolution was Norman Borlaug. He is considered the father of the Green Revolution and is credited for “saving over a billion lives” (Whelan, Washington Times). Borlaug is famous for his agricultural technological advance that promised to alleviate world hunger” (Norman Ernest Borlaug, Britannica). “The world produces enough food to feed everyone [however], many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food” (2012 World Hunger and Poverty facts and Statistics, WorldHunger). Borlaug’s invention helped fix this problem. He sent his product to Mexico and the indian subcontinent. The outcome was shocking. “Wheat production in Mexico multiplied threefold in the time that Borlaug worked with the Mexican government. In addition, dwarf wheat imported in the mid-1960’s was responsible for a 60 percent increase in harvests in Pakistan and India” (Norman Ernest Borlaug, Britannica).
 * Part 1. Proposal Paragraph **

brainstorming: -How can we solve world hunger? -How has agricultural developments help solve world hunger? -Is there a way to have no hungry people in the world? -How can we help feed under-developed countries? -How do we produce enough food for everyone? -How do you remove the problem of hunger from the world? -Are we doing enough to solve world hunger? -Who should solve world hunger? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">-How are improvements on agriculture not benefiting world hunger? <span style="background-color: #00ffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">-At what point does helping a country out turn into a priority?
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">Part 2. Develop a research question **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">Food security can be achieved through three fundamental pillars; food availability, access to food, and food utilization.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">Part 3. Develop a thesis statement **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">POST Annotated Citations for 2 sources here.
 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY **

<span style="background-color: #3232c0; color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 24px;">MEMO 2: Explain the Revolution and the Controversy or Problem that has resulted <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">Date:

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">To: Mrs. Sidor

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">From: Annie Trexler

<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">Subject: MEMO 2: Concisely state the issue, controversy or problem The Green Revolution occurred during the mid-20th century and was mostly a time of great increase in production of food grains (especially wheat and rice) that resulted in large part from the introduction varieties (green revolution, Britannica). Many poor farmers benefited from the revolution because due to higher crop yields, they were able to earn more money. Crops were growing faster because of a new breeding trait called dwarfism. "Dwarfs that are well fertilized and irrigated focus their energy on the health of their seeds and produce strong stems to support the additional grain" (Green Revolution, Gale). This new plant breed was developed by Doctor Norman Borlaug. His goal was to genetically mutate wheat to a form that could be grown in poor countries, and still provide an abundance of food. "The increased yields resulting from Borlaug's new strains enabled many developing countries to become agriculturally self-sufficient" (Norman Ernest Borlaug, Britannica). South and southeast Asia experienced a significant impact in their agricultural significant impact in their agricultural cultivations, whereas small parts of Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa took longer to adopt this new development (Green Revolution, Gale).

"The Green Revolution was started as an answer to the developing world's accelerating population growth and mounting hunger problem" (Green Revolution, Gale). Many theories have been floating around as to why we have this problem in our new age of technology and science. In an ideal world, every person would have physical and economic access at all times to healthy and nutritious food in significant quantity to cover the needs of their daily ration and food preferences. By having access to this, they would be able to live a healthy and active life (Food Security, GREENR). This is called food security. There are three fundamental pullers in achieving food security; food availability, access to food, and food utilization. When you look at it in black and white, achieving it sounds simple. Sadly, it's much harder than that. Currently, "many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food. The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources an extremely unequal income, distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself" (2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics, WorldHunger).

"Hunger is a product of poverty and underdevelopment, and undernourishment not absence of food but to lack of access to it" (Hunger, GREENR). According to the FAO Organization, over 925 million people on earth are considered undernourished. Nearly all of them are reported to be in developing countries. When narrowing it down to children, almost 5 million are reported to die every year from starvation. She. Loki g at it statistically, more than 70% of malnourished children live in Asia, 26% in Africa and 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean. In many cases, they are born malnourished because their mother was. "Under-nutrition among pregnant women in developing countries leads to 1 out of 6 infants born with low birth weight" (2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics, WorldHunger).

<span style="background-color: #3232c0; color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19px;">MEMO 3: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #404040; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">Date:

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">To: Mrs. Sidor

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">From: Annie Trexler

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">Subject: MEMO 3: Concisely state the issue, controversy or problem.

<span style="color: #404040; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 19.2px;">Organic Farming is based on traditional agricultural practices, but its emergence as both a method and a movement was mainly a reaction to the increasing industrialization of agriculture in the early 20th century. Early organic advocates believe that healthy soil was connected to healthy crops, healthy crops to healthy people, and healthy people to healthy societies. The application of genetics to agriculture since World War 2 has resulted in substantial increases in the production of many crops. Crossbreading has resulted in much more productive strains of wheat and rice. Called artificial selection, or selective breeding, these techniques have become apects of a larger and somewhat controversial field called genetic engineering.It all started in 1968, when Swiss microbiologist Werner Arber discovered reaction enzymes. These enzymes are essential to genetic engineering for their ability to cleave a specific site within DNA (organics of agriculture, Britannica).Building on this new DNA technology, scientists developed "gene-cloning," where a DNA's molecules from two or more sources are combined either within cells or in vitro and are then inserted into host organisms in which they are able to propagate (genetic engineering, Britannica).


 * Memo 4:**

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 22px;">Food security can be achieved through three fundamental pillars; food availability, access to food, and food utilization. The current controversy is // how // to achieve this throughout the world. Today, many countries contribute the funding to provide food amounts to underdeveloped countries to aid them with their hunger problem. However, at what point does helping a country turn into a priority? The U.S House of Representatives has decided to start withdrawing from the worldwide problem of famine by voting to "cut these lifesaving programs by almost 20% this year" (David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World). The United States has always somewhat contributed to helping to fight world hunger, but speakers from the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines, Iowa believe that other countries will follow their pattern of slowly decreasing their charity to underdeveloped countries in order to save money (Forest Laws, Farm Press). The money going to these countries buys food, it doesn't make it. New ideas are floating around that instead of money going to buy food, it could be invested in agricultural equiptment to produce crops that are products of genetic engineering.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 18.7167px; text-align: left;">**<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16pt;">Annotated Bibliography: **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">Brandon, Hembree. “Congressional spending cuts could void progress on food security.” Delta Agriculture. 13 October. 2011. Farm Press. 19 April 2012. []

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">This news article is a secondary source written by Hembree Brandon who is on the Farm Press editorial staff. In this news article, Brandon highlights the recent cuts in government spending and how it will affect hungry people in America and the rest of the world. This article is useful because it provides opposing statistics on how the United States spending cuts are affecting countries such as Africa.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">Various authors. “Issues In food security.” Agriculture Information Bulletin NO. (AIB765) 1pp. April 2001. Economic Research Service. USDA. 19 April. 2012 []

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16pt; text-align: left;">This information bulletin is a secondary source written by various authors from the United States Department of Agriculture. In this bulletin, issues in world wide food security and predictions for the future are addressed. This source was chosen for how well it summarized issues and its easy-to-understand language.

Memo 5

Genetic engineering has always been a controversial topic, whether it’s about human-reproduction of agriculture. The general public has never responded well to unnatural “Frankenfoods.” It doesn’t seem healthy or ethical, and in reality, crops grown using GMO seeds have never fared well when it comes to taste. Many argue that GMO farms are growing too fast for federal laws to keep up regulations. So far, there are no requirements to label foods that have been genetically altered. According to OM Organics, “recent lab tests and industry reports have shown that 60-75% test positive for these untested genetically modified foods. With no labeling regulations, there’s no way to tell what has been genetically engineered or not” (GMO’s, Om Organics).

Even though genetic engineered foods have prevalence in our food supply, there have been zero reports on them causing health problems. “So far, in America, trillions of servings of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients have been consumed without a single instance of harm to people or habitats – Whereas organic spinach sickened and killed a number of people in 2007” (Henry Miller, Former FDA biotech director). Biotechnology companies and “agri-business giants” claim that using technology and synthetics is the only way we can supply our world population.

Annotated Bibliography:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">Various authors. "Genetic Engineering/GMOs - Controversy." unknown. Om Organics. 20. April. 2012. <http://www.omorganics.org>

This article is a secondary source written by various authors from Om Organics. In this article, the main controversy's of genetic engineering in agriculture are addressed. I chose it because it gave me outline ideas that produced more ideas of how I can branch out the controversy of my topic.

Memo 6

Due to rising economic deficits, the U.S government has proposed a list of spending cuts to save money. A few of them involve feeding the hungry people of the United States, and under developed countries of the world. According to president of Bread for the World, Rev. David Beckmann, “Less than 1 percent of U.S government spending goes to help reduce hunger and poverty around the world, but the House of Representatives has voted to cut these lifesaving programs by almost 20 percent this year” (Congressional spending cuts could void progress on food security, Delta Farm press). These cuts are due to the turbulence in the global economy and especially the high grain prices. The U.S believes that their government can simply not afford to fund agricultural feeding problems any longer. In addition, the payments our government makes to farmers are considered pointless and wasteful. “Federal farm subsidies are outdated, expensive, and inequitable” (Jake Caldwell, Bad Seeds). Our nations farmers and rural communities are made up of poorly designed and ineffective agricultural subsidy programs that weaken their competitiveness. These programs drain taxpayer resources, and should be reformed. However, the government’s final decision of reform is cutting the programs funding completely.

These proposed tax cuts would not only reduce agricultural development assistance, but overcoming the cycle of famine as well. The hardest job researchers/scientists have is convincing people to break out of their old beliefs/habits to try something new and groundbreaking. Despite all of Norman Borlaug’s success in other countries, general Kofi Annan [former United Nations secretary] of Africa revoked Borlaug’s new agricultural propositions. Mr. Annan says, “Biotech crops are unsafe, untested, and likely to enslave poor farmers to mega-corporations and expensive seeds. He plans to “battle Africa’s chronic poverty and malnutrition with “traditional seeds” and methods” (Still feeding the World, The Washington Times). To counter Mr. Annan’s thoughts of refusing change, Borlaug rattled off statistics proving his traditional ways, a thing of the past. “Our planet has [around] 6.5 billion people,” he notes. “If we use only fertilizers and methods on existing farmland, we can only feed 4 billion. I don’t see [around] 2.5 billion people volunteering to disappear. To feed everyone [in the worls] with organic and traditional farming, we would have to plow millions of acres of forests and other wildfire habitat," he calculates. If, instead, we continue to use commercial fertilizer and hybrids, and have strong public support for (GE) research, the Earth can provide sufficient food for 10 billion people" (Still feeding the world, The Washington Times).

Annotated Bibliography:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: left;">Caldwell, Jake. “Bad Seeds.” 4 May.2011. Center for American Progress. 19 April. 2012. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; text-align: left;">[] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">This report is a secondary source written by Jake Caldwell, Director of Policy for Agriculture, Trade, and Energy at American Progress. In this report, Caldwell addresses how much money if funded towards American farms whether they are being farmed or not. He adds in statistics and his own recommendations as to what the next steps should be. This source is important because kit provides a good opposing opinion against my position.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">Driessen, Paul. "Still feeding the world." 20 April. 2008. The Washington Times. 19 April. 2012. <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news>

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">This news article is a secondary source written by Paul Driessen who is senior policy <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">adviser for the Congress of Racial Equality and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, and author of "Eco-Imperialism - Green Power/ Black Death." In this article, he shows Norman Borlaug's negotiating skills with Africa to try and get them to change their traditional ways of farming to his new genetic engineering ones. The article also shows how much Borlaug supports his research and is dedicated to spreading it world-wide to save as many lives as possible. This source was relevant to my topic because it provided Borlaug's opinions on traditional farming techniques and how he dealt with problems surrounding them.

Memo 7:

Genetically engineered seeds have a history of being dangerous to the environment and our health. A single species of GMO seeds are sold to specific farms (depending on bacteria), which then produce a single, uniform variety year after year. Assuming they are not victim to common GMO crop pitfalls, such as overall crop failure, insecticide resistance, and the creation of new "superweeds" and pathogen strains, the farm soil is degraded from mono - cropping and synthetic pesticides, just as it is in the U.S (Food Security: Our daily bread, The Guardian). One of the most co Mon concerns about genetic engineering in agriculture, is how scientists know too little about the possible environmental effects. Extremists in the environmental movement are doing everything they can to stop GE progress, an their allies in national and United Nations - based regulatory again cues are more than eager to help (A man for all seasons, The Washington Times).

Genetic engineering has advanced the understanding of many theoretical and practical aspects of gene function an organization. "Through recombinant DNA techniques, bacteria have been created that are capable of synthesizing human insulin, human growth hormone, alpha interferon, a hepatitis B vaccine, and other medically useful substances. Plants may be genetically adjusted to enable them to fix nitrogen, and be corrected by replacing "bad" genes with "normal" ones" (genetic engineering, Encyclopedia Britannica). "the new microorganisms created by recombinant DNA research were deemed patentable in 1980, and 1986 the U.S Department of Agriculture approved the sale of the first living genetically altered organism - a virus, used as a pseudorabies vaccine, from which a sine gene had been cut. Since then several hundred patents have been awarded for genetically altered bacteria and plants (Norman Borlaug, ABC-CLIO).

Annotated Bibliography:

Vaughn, Jacqueline. "Normal Borlaug." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. unknown. ABC-CLIO. 19. April. 2012. <http://www.issues.abc-clio.com>

This biography is a secondary source written by Jacqueline Vaughn. This article highlights all of Borlaug's achievements and summarizes his work. I chose this article because Norman Borlaug is a main contributor to genetic engineering and there was some good information that seemed useful for my paper.

Memo 8

Achieving food security is one of the biggest problems we currently face, “we must find ways in which to produce more food while continuing to produce more food while continuing to reduce the impact our agricultural practices have on the environment” (Felicity Lawrence, Royal Society Newspaper). Another issue is how to fund these programs without draining governmental funds. Many recommendations have been tossed around in regards to agricultural subsidy programs. For example, the $650 million saved from direct-payment reduction should be reinvested into existing rural-based programs to provide incentives for renewable clean energy, energy efficiency, and advanced dedicated biomass energy crops on the farm. A portion of these savings should also be dedicated to enhancing U.S. agricultural exports in a manner that promotes small businesses and is consistent with international trade obligations (Jake Caldwell, Center for American Progress).