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A while back, I posted about how policy is needed to create change in humans insatiable consumption habits. Change also takes place in each of our individual lives, when we make conscious to give up what we could have, to either future generations or those that lack resources today. Here are some commitments I'm making, while at the same time using the money I save to help others (example: supporting my Nicaraguan families ministry that helps poor youth with cancer)

Here are a few things I'm doing:

• Bike to school everyday (saves $100s on gas, and $150/year for parking pass), plus it's healthy
  
• Eat lower on the food chain (less processed), more locally, in season, and buy less meat (don't worry farmers, the rest of the world is eating plenty more of it each day)
  
• Eat rice and beans for a week - as a reminder of lack of variety in diets that most poor can't afford
• Take cold showers for a week - and short :) which should come naturally
  
• Hang clothes on a line
• Plant my own veggies (done!)
• Carpool as much as possible
• Recycle/plant trees
  
• Run outside, not the gym
• Use sustainable agriculture practices (on my small piece of rented farm ground)
  

These are all things that you can say "that won't make a difference" or "too extreme" or "sounds self-righteous" but that's not the point - the point is to remind myself of the great blessings I have, and pass them on to others. Blessed to pass it on.

DIRTy compromises

The other day I watched the video, "Dirt," and was fascinated and with questions, so this morning I met with a colleague, Priscilla, a Phd Agronomy candidate from Cameroon, West Africa, to get her expert advice. Here are a few highlights of what I learned!

• Most chemical nitrogen fertilizer we put into the soil is NOT used by plants (The video said 80% is unused). It leaches into the soil, runs off, or is used by micro-organisms (in the soil).
  
• Implication: (1) chemical fertilizer is expensive for farmers and (2) uses a lot of a non-renewable resource - oil
  
• As crop production increases, it reaches a point at which the crop has lower nutritional value.
• Implication: 2 tomatoes, one mass produced = low nutrition, one produced carefully, higher nutritional value, yet there is NO market incentive in place to produce a healthier tomato (organic is also mass produced) i.e. it should have more value but it doesn't
• Plants and micro-organisms use oxygen for energy (to more electrons). When areas are soaked with water, micro-organisms switch to nitrogen for energy
• Implications: (1) N20, nitrous oxide, a greenhouse is released into the atmosphere, and (2) valuable nitrogen (plant food) is released into the air

Takeaway: in order to feed the world (high production), we are making great compromises to our life-sustaining soils. Some of these we can avoid, some we can't.

Why learn these things as an Ag Economist? I am researching corn production in South Africa, specifically 5 different types, and I figured it was important to learn every aspect of Agriculture possible. So glad I'm at a prominent Ag school like K-State!