Professors:
David A. Cleveland, Daniela Soleri
Prerequisite: upper div standing AND
a) instructor approval (e-mail for add code) OR b) ES/Anth 149
Take
a close look at your next meal. Do you know what kind of plants you are
eating? How they are eaten in other parts of the world? Where they came
from originally? Who grows them now? And....what do you think you will be
eating 10 years from now?
The genetic, agronomic, food, and sociocultural diversity embodied in our food plants is an important resource for the future of both modern industrial agriculture, and low-input traditionally based farming communities. Understanding, using and conserving food crop diversity has become a critical issue in recent decades due to a rapidly growing human population, the need to make agriculture more socioeconomically and environmentally sustainable, new biotechnologies, the push for intellectual property rights for plants by the WTO and many national governments, increasing interest in collaboration between farmers and scientists, and resurging interest in traditional ethnic and regional foods.
This course
is an interdisciplinary and global exploration of the historical, social,
ecological and genetic forces that brought those plants to your plate,
and how those plants, and your food, might change in the future. We will
investigate the evolution of crop species from wild plants to farmers'
traditional varieties and modern varieties created by plant breeders,
how their spatial distribution and diversity is influenced by the biophysical
and socioeconomic environment including how people use, know and value
them, and options for conserving them, both in situ and ex situ. We'll
also cover the effects of agricultural biotechnology, including genetic
engineering.
An important part of this class will be a hands-on research project that applies the theory and methods of the course to investigating the diversity and distribution of historic olive (Olea europaea) trees in Santa Barbara County, including UCSB and Goleta. There will be field trips for observation and data collection (including GPSing trees, measuring trees & leaves, interviewing people about olive trees). Students will participate in analyzing morphophenological, genetic, historical and sociocultural data using a GIS and other tools. (See Olive Project research site: http://www.es.ucsb.edu/proj/olive/index.htm.)
All pages on this
site including images and text are copyright protected, please obtain
permission from webmaster. Copyright © 2002-2005 by Daniela Soleri
and David Cleveland