Read the essay question and write about it:
Requirement:
Your instructions: Write several paragraphs taking up no more than one side of one sheet of paper supporting choice B " not use this chemicalinput in their village plots and instead want to continue with their multicrop systems even though these traditionally informed systems are looked down upon as backward, unscientific and non-progressive.". In your essay,strive to integrate the various themes we have introduced throughout this course with a special focus onthe particular view- "less chemical and Pesticides, more organic "
ESSAY QUESTION:
You find yourself in a remote village on the continent of Africa as an employee of a privately funded American NGO (non-governmental organization) called MeanWell Foundation. The stated purpose of MeanWell is to enhance the health and well-being of these African villagers, and to achieve that goal you and other MeanWell employees are working alongside the villagers to improve the village water systems, build housing, support the village school, generally involving yourselves in the community life.
A controversy has arisen and a farm management decision must be made. While the decision will be made by the village within its own traditional governance hierarchy, the villagers are looking to MeanWell Foundation for its perspective on the matter because it involves American ideas and technology. In this situation, MeanWell Foundation will be acting as farm management consultant to the village. Since you are the only employee of MeanWell there who has the advantage of taking ARE 140 at UCD, all the other MeanWell employees having degrees in English, Art History or Comparative Literature, everyone is looking to you to make and support a sensible recommendation to this remote village in Africa.
Here is the situation: Currently the villagers plant a variety of crops in a traditional multicrop systems, utilizing the associated resident (often weedy) vegetation as food and medicine. Tillage and weeding is done by hand with hand tools by the villagers including children and old people. Irrigation water is held in a storage pond and flows down though the planted crop areas and then into the village where it is used as water for drinking and household use.
Recently a proposal has come from outside the village, from a development company that is moving into the area establishing large commercial farms based on monocrop systems, utilizing American agricultural technologies and expertise, focusing on scale, efficiency, and yield. The company is offering to the village technology and training in the form of free glyphosate herbicide for use in the village farm plots for two years, free safety training in the use of glyphosate for the villagers, and the possibility of employment for some of the trained villagers in the new commercial farms that are being established in this region.
There is difference of opinion in the village as to whether the village should accept this offer [Choice A] from this development company, with some community members eager to move forward and adopt this chemical technology that is well established and in widespread use in the USA. Other community members, particularly the older people, want to refuse this offer [Choice B] and not use this chemical input in their village plots and instead want to continue with their multicrop systems even though these traditionally informed systems are looked down upon as backward, unscientific and non-progressive.