Reading Reaction #1 Brief Summary
In his article “The State of the Eco-Union” Joel Salatin describes how the Eco-union began with decentralized passionate farmers who maintain the Eastern mindset of everything being interconnected. The shift from the innovative organic paradigm occurred with what Salatin refers to as “Wall Streetification.” This happened when the original values were lost and farmers made their businesses as efficient as possible while meeting the minimum requirements for being certified organic. He finishes his article with a call to arms for the members of the Eco-union, urging them to combine technology with the natural wisdom of farming to further their movement.
Critical Assessment
The biggest problem that I have with “The State of the Eco-Union” was that Salatin wrote as if his intended audience consists of his peers or those who understand the agricultural industry. As I am not familiar with the abbreviations CSA and ADM, and the terms: indemnify (this one made me angry), irradiated, feedlot, and extruded; I found the article difficult to understand without constantly switching to Google. He is also very biased when referring to …show more content…
Salatin is urging the decentralized eco-agriculturalists to continue the movement of informed food consumption from the bottom-up, by continuing their practices while resisting the impulse for government support. I think that by assuming that we can attempt this change from the top-down; by fighting the old paradigm head on, is in effect doing more harm. We are increasingly encountering resistance from the big businesses that are lobbying against us. Instead of focusing on the old model that we know to be flawed, we need to practice building the new model stronger; which I think is the argument that Salatin is trying to
In his article “The State of the Eco-Union” Joel Salatin describes how the Eco-union began with decentralized passionate farmers who maintain the Eastern mindset of everything being interconnected. The shift from the innovative organic paradigm occurred with what Salatin refers to as “Wall Streetification.” This happened when the original values were lost and farmers made their businesses as efficient as possible while meeting the minimum requirements for being certified organic. He finishes his article with a call to arms for the members of the Eco-union, urging them to combine technology with the natural wisdom of farming to further their movement.
Critical Assessment
The biggest problem that I have with “The State of the Eco-Union” was that Salatin wrote as if his intended audience consists of his peers or those who understand the agricultural industry. As I am not familiar with the abbreviations CSA and ADM, and the terms: indemnify (this one made me angry), irradiated, feedlot, and extruded; I found the article difficult to understand without constantly switching to Google. He is also very biased when referring to …show more content…
Salatin is urging the decentralized eco-agriculturalists to continue the movement of informed food consumption from the bottom-up, by continuing their practices while resisting the impulse for government support. I think that by assuming that we can attempt this change from the top-down; by fighting the old paradigm head on, is in effect doing more harm. We are increasingly encountering resistance from the big businesses that are lobbying against us. Instead of focusing on the old model that we know to be flawed, we need to practice building the new model stronger; which I think is the argument that Salatin is trying to