"Here's the final draft of my annotated bibliography, which is all about American agricultural practices (CAFOs, and the like), and how a similar but different country (Australia) faces the same requirements. I will be comparing their agribusiness models, and comparing the two in terms of profit, sustainability, and overall damage (or lack-thereof) to the environment."
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ACTUAL ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Brown, Corie. "Hot topic: our fragile food system :[HOME EDITION]. " Los Angeles Times [Los Angeles, Calif.] 23 May 2007,F.1. Los Angeles Times. ProQuest. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. 12 Oct. 2007
Corie Brown, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times food section, reports about the dangers facing the future of our food at a symposium about the nature of sustainable agriculture. In this article, she reports that leading experts believe the global food system to be fragile, and in need of serious revamping into sustainability. This article gives a wide band of information on what professionals believe should be done for the future of sustainable agriculture, as well as what extent sustainable agriculture should be taken to.
Frost, Lionel, "Australian Agricultural Historiography: A Survey,"Agricultural History, Vol. 71, No. 4. (Autumn, 1997), pp. 479-490.
Lionel Frost, an award-winning writer, most frequently writes about the environmental impacts taking place in Australia, North America and the Third World. In this article, Frost explores the history of Australian farming in a similar fashion to Pollan's discussion of the American farm in his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma." However, while there are similarities in the work, Frost illustrates that Australia is a very different land mass from North America, especially given the large amount of infertile land in Australia. Despite lacking evidence about the beginning stages of Australian farming, Frost is able to craft a powerful essay that covers a multitude of viewpoints, historical periods and regions of Australia. Overall, this essay will be most helpful to my essay by giving me a very solid background in Australian farming. In this sense, Frost's article is a parallel to Pollan's book, as they both give extensive background on farming practices, without a lot of opinion to blur the facts.
Pollan, Michael, "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," United States of America: Penguin Books, 2006.
Michael Pollan, a contributing editor to the New York Times Magazine and Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, gives an excellent explanation of the American agribusiness of today, from the founding of the first farms to the most recent developments of the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation)-based systems. Pollan explores the scientific step-by-step process from corn to hamburger and all stages in between, as well as the more personal question of why the reader should care about what they're eating, and how it was produced. He also examines the alternatives to the modern 'ideal' of American agribusiness, the CAFO, as well as the lack of sustainability in the current American agribusiness practice. In short, Pollan asks that Americans look at their food, and truly understand where it came from, and how it came to be.
Schmidt, Charles W., Serving up Food Safety: Who Wants a Piece of the Pie? (in Environews; Spheres of Influence), Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 109, No. 7. (Jul., 2001), pp. A324-A327.
In this opinionated article, Schmidt (a toxicologist-turned-author with a Masters Degree in Public Health) argues that the federal regulations in the United States aren't equipped to handle the large amount of agriculture they are supposed to be monitoring, and that the infrastructure is too fragmented to be as effective as it should be. In addition, Schmidt explains that all attempts to change the regulations so far have resulted in nothing, and that there would need to be an extremely large amount of money poured into such a venture to make it successful. This essay is an excellent partner to the Staley essay, as it describes almost the same situation, but on the opposite side of the coin. While Australian farmers are struggling to compete with the under-regulated (and therefore cheaper) American agriculture, Americans are suffering from the effects of poorly-regulated food safety. In the end, both sides obviously suffer, although very little is done to change it.
Staley, Louise. "How to destroy a country town. " Review - Institute of Public Affairs 57.4 (2005): 5-6. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. 12 Oct. 2007
Louise Staley, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Affairs in Australia, writes this opinion piece in defensive of the community of farmers in Australia. She contends that over-regulation of Australian farms are causing them to be unable to compete in a world market, as well as crushing the rural farmers. She believes that regulation is causing farms to lose their viability, and could even spell doom for the rural farmer by disallowing him the support of his community. This piece gives a new view into some of the modern concerns of the Australian farmer, and her opinion piece clearly showcases some of the competition taking place between America and Australia on a global scale. Clearly, if America had as many regulations on their farming as Australia did, Australians wouldn't be struggling in the global market. But instead of advocating higher standards for all countries, Staley advocates lowering the Australian regulations for farming.
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