IA Meeting #3- Spring 2021

In this meeting we had a guest speaker talking on the topic of Coping with Food Security: The Experiences of Agricultural Communities in Developing Countries. The speaker Rafael has an extensive global background in agricultural studies and is well-traveled. He started talking about food security and how COVID has impacted the food security problem in our world. Developing countries receive the first impacts of pandemics. A great point Rafael brought up is that the people you are trying to help in any field have the best knowledge of what they are dealing with because they have first-hand knowledge. I think this is a very important thing to remember in any kind of work that deals with people are to first take into account their experience and knowledge.

We then talked about the importance of water in our life and what having a clean water source means. Food security can span over very many aspects such as culture, gender roles, economics, agriculture, and many more. These are very important to keep in mind when addressing food security. With these aspects in mind, Rafael went over different communities and how they helped the community with a need they had. We went over the different classifications and strategies used to address food security. The focus shifted to specifically central america where Rafael is from how this food security is playing out there and how it is affecting the area.

Food waste is the biggest problem in developed countries that are contributing to the food security problem in our world. Growing up my family never wasted food, we ate expired food and leftovers all the time because my family has a very Appalachian culture where you eat what you are given and never waste. As I got older and saw my friends family throwing away leftovers and adults and kids not finishing their plates I was shocked. I think there needs to be a culture change in the United States around food and specifically food waste.

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