Exploration 4: Fresh response Cole Haferman

     What stuck with me most from the film Fresh by ana Sofia Joanes was the idea of a monoculture and how they are impossible and do not exist in nature. I had never heard of such a thing before and took it for granted that the vast fields of corn and soybeans seen along the roads of Ohio were completely normal on their own. While I knew pesticides and fertilizers were used I was unaware that it is only through them that these large fields are seemingly possible. One thing this film did right was to focus largely on solutions to the problem of industrialized agriculture rather than glorifying its mistakes and weaknesses in the most gruesome way possible and many similar documentaries have done. This is what I would chose to focus my review on if I were to chose this film for my review. On a personal level I relate most to the idea that above all else "Americans fear inconvenience" and I believe this to be true on many levels with many applications of the word inconvenience to our daily lives.
     For this part of the blog I decided to stick with the idea of monocultures and where they are commonly seen throughout history and why they are not considered sustainable for modern farmers.
Before the use of pesticides and fertilizers was a common practice as it is today crops were rotated in fields to replenish the nutrients found in the soil and not cause the soil to be infertile. This over usage of a singular crop in part led to the cause of the dust bowl in the 1930's. It is because of the use of modern fertilizers that farmers today are able to plant their fields with corn year after year and not have to worry about depleting the soil, the nutrients are sprayed right on the plants.

http://www.cropscience.org.au/icsc2004/symposia/2/1/1128_cookrj.htm