Rachel's PAEP Individual Reflective Analysis

 Rachel Hatem 

COR 230 

Williams 

13 November 2013 

PAEP Individual Reflective Analysis 

Intervale Farm and Sustainable Agriculture 

Since as early as the 19th century the practice of sustainable agriculture has been around and practiced, although it may have no been called this early on. Before the use of totalitarian agriculture came to be popular, farmers all over farmed in small plots that were relatively environmentally friendly. The idea of sustainable agriculture is that it is farming while understanding the relationship between organisms in their environment (MacRae). The Intervale Center was established in 1986, by Will Raap, founder of Gardener's Supply. Raap spearheaded the Intervale clean-up project to restore the 700 acres and it's agricultural roots and help feed the city of Burlington, Vermont again (History). After over 20 years of restoring the Intervale to what it one was, this center for sustainable agriculture has become nationally recognized center for farming.  

The science behind sustainable agriculture is mainly what has to be done in order to save water and energy. Conventional farming used many pesticides and large machinery  to make to efficient when farming. With sustainable farming, they try very hard to avoid these types of the tactics because they are bad for the environment. Sustainable Farmers avoid these by growing crops in greenhouses during the winter so that they can control the environment that they are in. Growing in a greenhouse can also help them control the irrigation and moisture levels in the air.  

The policies that occur in the United States for the farming is that conventional farmers must follow certain policies, but over all they are aloud to do what they wish with the land that they farm on. Conventional farmers are aloud to farm next to rivers and other bodies of water. The Agricultural Adjustment Act is a policy that pays farmers for the crops that they grow and supply to the country in order to feed the country. The policy also makes it so farmers are not allowed to farm on all of their land, but are allowed to do with it what they want (Agricultural).  

Ethically, I personally think that sustainable farming is good for the environment and everyone in general. At centers like the intervale, sustainable farming is a way for communities to come together and live a happy, healthy life, that also doesn't harm the environment. With sustainable farming, there are no pesticides used which is also an ethical decision for the environment and farming in general.  

The process of this research project was somewhat difficult at first. When we first were trying to pick a company to do this project on we had many ideas that theoretically would work, but when it came to executing it would not. Once we decided on the Intervale Center, it made it a lot easier to perform the assignment. Before we went to the Center to look around and really understand what we were studying, we did some research on the intervale and learned what they really were all about. Once we finished all of our reasearch on the Center we went to the center and walked around on our own and took pictures.  

After all this stuff was done, the hard part came of making out poster. This may not sound challenging but we wanted to make it look as professional as possible. To me, the creation of the poster was the part of the poster that took the most team work, and required the most collaboration of all of our previous research of the intervale, as well as knowledge of sustainable agricultural. 

Work Cited   

MacRae, Rod. "History of Sustainable Agriculture." History of Sustainable Agriculture. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://eap.mcgill.ca/AASA_1.htm>. 

"History." Intervale Center RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://www.intervale.org/about-us/history/>. 

"Agricultural Adjustment Act." Agricultural Adjustment Act. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1639.html>.