Architecture Commons^™

Cultivating America's Working Lands: A Study Of The Sociocultural Value Of Family Farms, Katherine Lloyd

Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium (GRADS)

Our ability to produce food in a sustainable, healthy and humane manner is threatened, both in the United States and on the global scale. This difficulty is exacerbated by expected population growth, creating a need for 60% more food worldwide by 2050 to feed a population of 9.3 billion. How we produce food affects local economies, the cultural vitality of communities, and the health of regional ecosystems. Industrial or conventional agriculture is damaging all three of these systems by draining local economies through corporate business practices, isolating farmers and attributing to rural population losses, while depleting natural resources and polluting …