Excellent main post from Allison D. – this post shows her thought process, supported by the materials from the week. I really want to be able to see your thinking process through your writing. She also shows a good understanding of the course perspectives.

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To start I am a big fan of the interactive games; it really does enhance my level of understanding of the course material and the effects it has towards the environment. Honestly, I played “Bet The Farm” three times, and I made sure to choose different things to grow and different livestock to raise each time, just so I can get an idea of how costly and how much more labor goes into each category. The first time I played I choose to only grow corn, because according to the information provided in the game, Ohio is one of the top corn producers and contributes to about $900 million dollars a year. However, I did not see much of a profit, so my next game I chose to raise livestock and crops, because according to the article “Factory Farming in the Developing World,” mixing crops and livestock creates a more self-sustaining farm because of crop rotation and multiple uses of fertilizer. That game my farm made the highest profit I got, at about $90,000 and only required 3 full time workers, and thanks to the H-2A program there are an extra 45.000 foreign workers who are willing to work those 60 hour weeks and at a lower cost to me, the farmer.

The readings in my opinion had a little bit of mixed views on organic, and meat producing farms. In the voice recording of Mark Bittman, also author of a meat-free cookbook, he voiced his opinion on lowering intake of meat and dairy products because of how damaging and harmful they are on both the environment and our bodies. In the game, I did try a combination of beef and dairy, and the results of my farm ended in my animals all contracting illnesses, as well as getting “fined” for the amount of pollutants my farm created. Whereas the article “The Omnivores Delusion,” by Blake Hurst, who has been in the farming profession for over 30 years, views meat farming as o.k, because it just depends on the conditions and methods the farmers use to raise their livestock. I can agree with this because it is possible to raise livestock without putting them into sheds and restricting their diets and movements. However, my main concern for a “traditional” way of farming is the weather because it is unpredictable, therefore without using high-tech barns, and more chemicals it is impossible to tell if your yield will be big enough for a bigger profit.

The social perspective is the human impact on the environment based on decisions, and during the game “Bet The Farm,” we were given many different choices to make that will both enhance our farm and possibly damage the environment, or possible put our farm at risk and not harm the environment. I can imagine the choices farmers have to make are difficult because their profit depends on having healthy and a considerable amount of their crops to sell. One decision I made was how much chemicals I wanted to add to my soil, the low amount didn’t offer very much security to my crops but the high amount did, so I chose that one. However I got fined because I polluted the water systems and the air around my farm.
Also, the economic perspective plays into the same example I gave for the social perceptive, because financial incentives and disincentives are due to either action I took while playing with my farm or that I didn’t take. Although I did get fined for adding high amounts of chemicals to my soil, I did end up with a profit that was about $50,000 and whether or not that was due to luck with the weather, without adding that amount of chemicals my crops could have also been damaged.