The Penn State Didactic Program is an outstanding one, but after looking at the required course list I felt there was a gap. It felt wrong to give nutrition advice without taking into consideration where and how our food is produced! During my time at Penn State I took several classes that discussed sustainability as well as different ecosystems and agricultural economics. These classes helped prepare me to understand different perspectives on farming and food preparation.
Sustainability:
Economic Principles of Agribusiness Decision Making was the first agriculture class I took at Penn State. This class helped me comprehend different economic principles and their application to the real world. In class we discussed examples of different issues that might change food prices depending on factors like length of growing season, type of farming, and farm location. We also learned a great deal regarding how to calculate supply and demand and how that affects pricing and profits for farmers.
Perspective on Sustainability and Human-Environmental Systems was a highly thought provoking class that conducting a lot of interactive discussions and debates regarding both sustainable agricultural and living. This class gave be a broad perspective on how the world around me works in many different areas and forced me to think about the impact my daily actions have on the enviroment.
Principles and Practices of Organic Agriculture focused on the growing popularity in organic farming through discussing the science of Agroecology. This class took learning about organic farming to the next level by putting us into groups of five in order to create our own organic farm. As a group we had to create a farming system taking into consideration soil health, diversified cropping systems, organic pest management, and system perspective. We did this all while following organic regulations. At the end of the class we presented our farm business plan which also included management and marketing strategies. Click on the Power Point to view our Final Presentation.
In my Principles and Practices of Organic Agriculture, we also had several article write ups regarding our opinions on organic farming. Here is an example of one of my opinion write-ups regarding bioavailability of vitamins in organic versus commercial farming.
