Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

This photo shows an urban garden in the backyard of a Pasadena home; the lot belongs to a coworker of my dad's

We'll have a house discussion in place of a research check this Friday to check in on how things are going.

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

- Thankfully, I have found a second mentor with whom I hope to work with till the end of senior project arrives.  This mentor of mine is named Scott Fleeman and, as mentioned in an earlier blog, he is the manager of Pomona College Organic Farm.  Converting from a possibility into where I am engrossed in every Saturday, the farm has enabled and will continue to enable my exposure to farm management and farm strategy when it comes to providing the material for sale with the idea of urban farming.  In this way, I have two mentors addressing and stimulating my understanding of the economic and literal implications of my topic, and the anatomy of its process (assembly line) from germination to community involvement and onward towards sustainable shopping.  As of now, I have completed my second interview with my current primary farm hand mentor this past Monday at 2 PM (as he voraciously chewed a citrus of some sort).

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

- The areas of future study I find most relevant to my topic are those of community engagement (and how this movement can influence politics in the name of food security and shifts towards societal sustainability) and the science of proper soil management when farming for the trend.  It seems both add complexity to a rather simple topic (transforming grayspace into productive greenspace through the growing of produce in city environment) by being able to relate urban farming to multidimensional benefits residing in  local food sourcing and the combat against climate change.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

- To delve deeper into the science of proper soil treatment when farming, I will continue to read the book “Grass, Soil, Hope” by Courtney White and to analyze the effects of urban farming on a given community, I will look into victory gardens established as community gardens in America during its home front effort in World War II.  To supplement this P.O.V. from the past, I will continue to read the modern-day style of the novel “Farm City”, Novella Carpenter.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

→ What are the ways in which urban farming can make effective its definition to a food system?