Post 15: E Reserves

         “Piracy by Patient” is about how patent law allows for the corporate ownership over traditional knowledge as well as natural resources. Many of this knowledge and resources comes from developing nations as well. The author refers to this as bio-piracy. This is the idea that what was once shared knowledge is now being privatized by Western corporations and being used for profit. This undermines local farming communities and exploits poorer countries. I agree with the author that this is exploitative and is to the detriment of local communities who have developed and shared this knowledge. I also believe that what corporations often call their own innovations are rarely their own, whether it is in tech, medicine or even farming. Innovation is the vast majority of time done in public institutions or local communities, while the profits of innovation are privatized. 

        The “Local Trap” describes how people will blindly assume that the scale of a farming operation is indicative of its efficiency, sustainability, or morality. The author is asserting that there are plenty of examples of small scale operations which are not as ethical or environmentally conscious as larger operations. They think what is more important in assessing those social responsibility factors, is who owns the farms, and what their goals are. I think to a certain extent, this may be correct, except in the case of Piracy by Patient, where large scale corporations, due to their scale, are able to inflict more harm.

        In the “CSA” article, the author talks about how “food miles” is an insufficient way of measuring the environmental impact of producing food. They also talked about how the idea of eating local is about having a connection between the food you eat and community, environment, and the understanding of the sources of what you’re consuming. It is not as much, as many people assume, about food miles and only consuming what is in your immediate physical environment. I think that understanding where your food is coming from, and having a personal connection to what you eat is important, and probably leads to a healthier lifestyle generally. Most food you buy in a grocery store gives you no way of knowing where that food came from, and that probably leads to a disconnect between people and their food.