Fourth Interview Questions

The welcoming entrance sign to the Pomona College Organic Farm...

1.)  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to interview either Paul Huang, who works as a tech-consultant at International Polytechnic High School, or Rozanne Adanto, the supervisor for Pasadena’s Villa-Parke Community Center.  Paul is a farming hobbyist who maintains a backyard-based urban farm of much acreage in comparison to his surrounding neighborhood in Arcadia.  Rozanne heads a city-regulated center in  northwest Pasadena so that the area’s inclination in being a ‘food desert’ is diminished.  The center acts as a community garden in addition to teaching lessons regarding nutrition to those willing to listen and learn.  In this way, Paul is a homegrown personal activist while Rozanne is a community catalyst of progress and a heightened standard of living.
  
  

2.)  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

1. How do you define urban farming and what ambition/interest of yours lead you to experiment with this field of science and of living?
2. Farming has been defined as a rural pastime and culturally relevant way of life for rural communities in terms of modern society.  How does its practices better benefit modern society by being in close proximity to city-living?  How is the relationship between an urban farm and its urban environment more of a mutually beneficial relationship?  
3. To what specific kinds of issues can urban farming best be suited to treat and find solutions for?  Care to share an example?
4. How does urban farming define a community?  Why would it be important for a community to treat urban farming as an outlet to the hustle and bustle of everyday life?  Long-term results?  Short-term results?
5. How can urban farming become more readily accessible to the people of a community?  How is the practice able to transcend socioeconomic backgrounds?  What is the social value of urban farming?
6. How is urban farming more of a concept that an idea?  How can the conceptual aspect of urban farming act as a way for the idea to be implemented as a practice and reality?  Define the reality of urban farming as you see it please.
7. Is the practice of urban farming sustainable?  How so?  How do you define sustainability, and why does a future society of humanity need such a dose of supposed progress?
8. What can urban farming contribute to science, and how can it act as a symbol of environmental stewardship?  In what ways does maintaining an environmentally conscious urban farm aid in realizing the prosperity of one such farm?
9. What are some stimulants behind the growing popularity of urban farming?  How is this popularity helpful and troublesome?  How can such momentum be harnessed for the implementation of urban farming and the design of its blueprint?
10. What are some obstacles faced in establishing an urban farm plot?  How can these be overcome?  What makes the idea or urban farming so persistent, and a necessity?
11. What is one argument that can be made to a city if one wishes to treat urban farming as a city-sponsored policy?  What is an appeal of urban farming and its products that cooperative agriculture does not have?
12. For what reason/s is organic farming a healthier farming method?  How are its products healthier?  What do you say to those who say there exists no scientific backing to this possibility of ‘healthier food’?
13. How can the philosophy - define it as you see fit - forming the foundation of urban farming be applied to other political/social/environmental situations in daily life?  How can such application better the standard of living for society as a whole?
14. For those struggling financially, how is urban farming an alleviation to a burdensome socioeconomic background, and its consequences as lived out?  Would you please focus on the consequences of tattered food security and living in a food desert?
15. How do your first hand experiences with urban farming help integrate the practice into society and make the idea seem valuable?  Valuable in what way/s?
16. What are the first steps in convincing the public the relevance of urban farming?  To what does said relevance mostly refer to (economic, environmental, etc.)?
17. How is education a valuable tool in making urban farming a platform for a rekindling of connection between humanity and its planet?  How is such re-connection imperative/beneficial?
18. What is the simplest way for an average American to get involved in advancing urban farming?  How would you define the ‘advancement’ of the practice?
19. How can urban farming evolve in the ages to come?  How will such evolution change the practice for the better?  For the worse?  What is your role as you see it in making such evolution possible?
20. Do you think urban farming will eventually replace field agriculture as a primary source of food?  Or is it more like a supplemental?  What is the eventual goal of urban farming?  How does it act as the means to achieving said goal?

Third Interview Preparation

A shot of El Sereno Community Garden with a billboard in the background

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

- My planned interviewee is Marie Salas, who is the contact person for El Sereno Community Garden - a plot of land available to residents in the nearby community for produce planting.   This targeted subject of mine has promising potential in being able to provide me with insight into what humanitarian effect urban farming has on a community setting.  I look forward to hearing how Marie manages her initiative and what encounters she had made that make her line of work meaningful.  

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview?

- Marie has not yet replied to my email, and so I have been unable to schedule a date with her as of now.  I am seeking other options as far as interviewees in community gardening settings are concerned just in case my interview request is not replied to indefinitely.

The email I sent to Marie Salas

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

- How is the slow paced, more personable nature of urban farming more effective in producing food than commercial farming?

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

- How can I get involved with supplying locally grown food to those in my community, me being a student and willing volunteer of time and curiosity?

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ.

- How have you helped families in the local community acquire food?  

- How does the nature of this food (in being grown so close to home) benefit each family helped and their wellbeing?

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

It will be interesting to see, if the mentorship at the college works out, how being established on a college campus affected and affects the stability of the Pomona College organic farm in its operations 

The Pomona College organic farm stands next to a grassy lawn used for sports and is split into two regions - one with fruit trees and low lying herbs and the other teeming with robust vines and bushes used as herbs and produce...the lot is, from a general point of view, located at the south end of the college campus

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

For my second interview, I shall be interviewing a third mentor of mine - this one hopefully helping me traverse the project till my 1.5 hour presentation next spring.  Unlike my first two mentors at Caltech and the Arroyo Food Co-op, this expert will help me explore the aspect of urban farming concerned with being familiar with farming techniques and measuring a living by the amount of produce self-produced.  Finding one such person at a farm, I will retire from my post as an Arroyo Food Co-op ambassador if the store continues to fare poorly in regards to financial circumstances - as of now, the  Co-op is struggling to stay afloat in their homegrown, community-based vision.  It would be ideal to continue working at a functioning grassroots store so essential to publicizing the idea of urban farming while looking behind-the-scenes at the physical labor put into actually making its shelves stocked.  However, I am expecting to adapt to whatever situation is afforded to me, especially since I have by now fully tapped into the experience and hands-on information (through observation and conversation) available at my two listed mentorships!  

Currently, as I type this post, I am in the process of emailing the head farmer at the organic community farm at Claremont Pomona College - where my sister attends her new college life - to see if he would be willing to mentor me in being more fit - physically and mentally - for this project.  Being that this man has just graduated from UC Santa Barbara with knowledge in biology and general regenerative studies, I feel he is compatible with urban farming as a ‘rising trend’ and a more ‘promising solution’ to many ecological and therefore social issues, like that of food security in a world battling the consequences to climate change.  In the same way the farm manager reflects his recently acquired expertise through his work environment, I hope to take what I have read about in articles for research checks and apply these dreamlike tid bits in continuing the movement towards food sustainability.  If my Pomona contact falls through, I will follow up with the manager at Earthworks Farm, which gives younger generations the opportunity to learn farming techniques from experienced farmers who devote their time to education.  The Farm is unique in allowing each of its ‘students’ manage a farm plot of their own, pulling in big name sponsors to cover costs of the operation.

• Pomona College Farm manager: Scott Fleeman

Scott.Fleeman@pomona.edu

• Earthworks Farm

Senior Farmer (official mentor): Angel Abarca

Program/Development Director: Marianne Zuagg

http://earthworksfarmgarden.org/about-us/staff/

2.  What five (and then some) questions will you ask them about their background?

• What interests growing up most contributed to the fruition of your involvement in urban farming? How do you view your role in bringing urban farming to your community setting? What is your definition of urban farming?
• What struggles have you faced in seeing your ideas come into reality at this workplace of yours? In what ways have these road-blocks stimulated your ambitions? Please detail your ambitions in regards to urban farming.
• How has the community supported you in maintaining the success of your farm? How do you involve the general public in something so against society's reliance on outsourcing?
• Do you relate the idea of urban farming to a trend or a modern-day saving grace? What cause (environmental, economic, etc.) does it most benefit in your opinion, and how can it become more of a staple of ‘everyday life’?
• How has your personal life integrated urban farming into its daily routine? Do you believe urban farming is/has been a keystone of the past or the future?
• What is the prime location of an urban farm and what resources are most needed by a citizen to start one up?
• Which method of urban farming - aquaponic or hydroponic - is most useful? Why? Have you been in contact with either method?
• How does one maximize the potential of an urban farm lot - regardless of its size in acrage?

→ If Scott is chosen…

• What makes having a farm on a college campus beneficial to the farm/more difficult for the situation?
  
  

Inquiry in pursuit of a diverse set of resources…

• How will the drought in California affect the prominence of urban farming in city-communities?
• Who has been your inspiration in your pursuit of urban farming? Where do you plan to continue your career? What career path interests you as of now?

Earthworks Farm is located in El Monte and has been bent on educating the public on how to re-connect with techniques that human ancestors used for sustenance (placing seeds in soil and watching them grow and produce edibles)

It seems that Savodaya Farms is out of the picture for learning the hands-on aspect of urban farming, giving that its farmer training program - a way to most utilize the farm's resources for my mentorship - takes place on weekdays during morning hours - when I must farm grades at school