Final Readings -- E-Reserves

 In the "Conserving Communities", the author goes over the general decline of the farming business. At the beginning of the last century, nearly one third of the United States' population was in some kind of agricultural field. At the end of the 20th century, it was down to less than one-fiftieth, 2%. The chapter goes over how globalization has been a generally negative thing for local and rural communities, having their countrysides "exploited" by the big corporations. Such corporations have little to no care for the communities and land that they use, prioritizing profits over most anything else. Local shops and communities have been starting to die out in highly urban areas, as well as lesser urban areas with corporates popping up.

The chapter "Global to Local," the author discusses what we can do to help our communities. Something as simple as buying local can do so much to support the local, smaller businesses that are being metaphorically "trampled" by these much larger national or global businesses. Additionally, you can join a program hosted by your community to allow you to create relationships with the farmers. The later part of the chapter seems to go into a bit more of a political kind of view, with steps "as a citizen" that one can take, like voting, writing congress, addressing national issues directly or through art, etc. I think that it shows how much of an impact globalization has had on local communities and farmers that they're encouraging writing to congress about it. The situation has to be so dire at that point that they'd need governmental intervention in order to save what they're losing.

In all, these two reads blatantly show the more negative side of globalization and how it really treats the communities that built the foundation for agricultural practices.