Economics of Sustainable Agriculture

The reliance on sustainable agriculture goes beyond solely providing food and food security as it provides economic stability and growth.  Implementing sustainable practices into the agriculture sector, especially in Wayanad, provides lasting labor opportunities, sufficient income and a better quality of life. The use of pesticides has a deleterious effect on crops and water run-off, leading to health risks. As a small village with little education and with pesticides readily available, Wayanad is highly susceptible

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From Farm to Table: Bringing People Together through Gardening

This summer, I started a small garden in my backyard. After building   a raised bed and planting small seedlings, I anxiously (and impatiently) waited to see signs of growth. I planted red bell peppers, summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, and green beans. Every afternoon, I watered and weeded the bed until one day in July, I began to see some new developments. A small bell pepper was beginning to form on one of the plants! Gardening

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Food Insecurity in a SNAP

  The SNAP Challenge is a weeklong experiment to get a glimpse of what life can be like for low-income Americans living on food stamps. The average daily food stamp benefit is only $4 per person per day. I took on this challenge for a “Justice and Civil Society” course in college to better understand the difficulties and unfairness of our nation’s lack of food security. My limit for a week’s worth of meals was

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Volunteerism & Sustainability

In 2015, U.N. officials and leaders of international development programs announced that volunteers would be an essential part of efforts to meet the newly proposed Sustainable Development Goals. It was also a year in which volunteers demonstrated their potential to create change. Thousands of volunteers responded to the Ebola crisis in Guinea and helped to strengthen social services in Togo; however, despite the scope and significance of volunteers’ accomplishments, their contributions are often unrecognized or

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Access to Safe Water

Imagine mostly inaccessible water, tainted with toxic chemicals.  Then imagine being forced to travel long distances to drink that harmful water, because it is your only choice for survival.  In the United States and other developed countries, access to clean water is something we take for granted.  But in many parts of the world, such basic necessities are not so easy to obtain. According to Indian governmental surveys, 54% of homes in rural India do

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