Final Readings

The article "Conserving Communities" addresses the issues surrounding large corporations taking advantage of local communities for their, and destroying the livelihoods of said communities in the process. The article draws attention to economic prejudice against small enterprises in favor of one large enterprise, and how their ultimate goal is not to create a society in which "everyone will be a winner," but rather to reduce the number of people who might be thought successful by our societal standards. Combatting these views held by the global community is the local community, made up of those who wish to focus on self-preservation. They believe that in order to foster a healthy local community, they must work to preserve the connections between things like farming, nature, food, and health. I liked that the article mentioned how both political parties in the U.S. favor national corporations over farmers, and how one "cannot be a democrat (small d) or a conservationist" but also be a "proponent of the supernational corporate economy." This observation highlights that economic prejudice mentioned earlier in the article and shows how difficult it really is to cause any meaningful change within agriculture and farming communities. 

The article "Global to Local" provides solutions for readers to fight back against global systems despite claims that there are no alternatives to globalization. Each section is divided into steps that one can take at different levels of the global scale: how they can make an impact as a consumer by supporting local organic farms and becoming informed about how certain products are made, and how one can make an impact as a citizen on all levels from local, to national, to global. The global citizen section of this article stuck out to me in particular because many people believe that they have no impact on large, global corporations as a citizen. However, by discussing avenues that the reader can take all the way up to the global level, including participating in global exchanges, the author shows just how many avenues of advocacy are accessible to everyday people, and that individuals can have a larger impact on the system than they are led to believe.