EOS 280 : Sustainable Agriculture and Gardening

Although humans can obtain the air and (to a lesser extent) the water they need freely, we must work to provide our bodies with food. Before the industrial era, hunting, gathering, and farming were the primary human activities. Technology and industrialization have greatly reduced the human labor required to produce food, and farming has become the specialized occupation of the few. However, in the process, modern industrialized agriculture has developed into a system with many impacts, such as water pollution, greenhouse gas production, and the health consequences of highly processed diets. These impacts of industrialized agriculture are unsustainable as population increases, water resources become scarce, and global warming makes the intensive use of fossil fuels undesirable. In this course, we will examine what a more sustainable mode of food production might look like through class work as well as hands-on work in the Soka Instructional Garden.