CSUS 343

CSUS 343: Community Food and Agricultural Systems

Spring 2025

Section 730, online (D2L)

3.0 credit hours

Instructor: Phil Howard
Office Address: 316 Natural Resources
Office Hours: by appointment
E-mail: howardp@msu.edu

Required Text:
Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need to Save Them. Dan Saladino. 2022. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Part 2: Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes

The primary learning objectives for this course are:
•    Investigate the paths food takes from fields to forks, both here and abroad
•    Explore the intersections of community, food, agriculture and the environment
•    Analyze dominant trends in food systems, and responses to these trends
•    Critically assess strategies to achieve sustainable food systems

Part 3: Grading Policy

Graded Course Activities
(100 points each, 400 points total)
•    Weekly readings, reflection and commentaries
•    Weekly reflections on presentations or field trips
•    Two reviews: book “Eating to Extinction,” due February 20 and a book of your choice (or 3 films), due April 2
•    Final self-evaluation, due April 29

Grading scale for the course (by percentage of the 400 points obtained):
The table below describes the relationships between letter grades, percent, and performance. The first column describes the letter grade. The second column describes the percentage associated with that letter grade. The third column describes the performance represented by that letter grade and percentage.

Grade Point    %    Performance
4.0     96 to 100     Excellent Work
3.5     90 to 95     Above average
3.0     84 to 89     Good Work
2.5     78 to 83     Mostly Good Work
2.0     72 to 77     Average work
1.5     66 to 71     Below average work
1.0     60 to 65     Poor work
0     0 to 60     Failing work

Viewing Grades
Grades for all assignments are viewable in the D2L gradebook.

LATE POLICIES: if you are occasionally a few minutes (or even hours) past the 5pm deadlines don’t worry, no points will be deducted unless it becomes a habit.

You are allowed ONE late assignment with no penalty (submitted up to one week late, but before the course ends April 19) – however, you must inform me which one you are submitting late so that I know to go back and grade it without penalty.

Late assignment penalty is minus 50% of total points, but only up to one week after the deadline. Submissions more than a week late will receive no credit. Note that mathematically you can score a zero on one or two weekly assignments during the course and still achieve a 4.0.

I highly recommend checking the course schedule and noting all deadlines, particularly the two critical reviews (50 points each) and the self-evaluation (100 points). You will need to obtain and read your books/view films well before these deadlines (also in bold above) in order to complete them successfully.

ADVICE: Try to submit well before the deadlines if possible, there is no reason not to work as far ahead as you can – other than commenting on two other student’s posts for the readings assignments (if enough other students haven’t also submitted ahead of the deadline).

Part 4: Schedule

Note: If a link is not working for you try plugging it in to: https://archive.org/or http://archive.ph/ (go to the second entry line for saved snapshots in archive.ph). These resources are particularly useful if you have exceeded the number of free views for sites with paywalls). For New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Detroit Free Press and Lansing Street Journal you may qualify for a free subscription: https://asmsu.msu.edu/home/services/717-2/

Week 1

  • Introduction to Food Systems
  • Personal Introductions
  • Cheap, Legal and Everywhere: How Food Companies Get Us ‘Hooked’ On Junk (interview with Michael Moss). Fresh Air (NPR), April 28, 2021.
  • Beware of the Food That Isn’t Food. Helen Lewis. The Atlantic, May 21, 2023.
  • Optional reading: Howard, Philip H. 2022. The politics of milk: examining claims about dairy in China.
  • Film: King Corn

Week 2

  • Food Politics and Policy. Marion Nestle. Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Food Studies. 2024.
  • Linux for Lettuce. Lisa M. Hamilton. VQR, Summer 2014.
  • Optional reading: Chaplin-Kramer, Rebecca, M. Jahi Chappell, and Elena M. Bennett. 2023. Un‐yielding: Evidence for the agriculture transformation we need. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1520.1: 89-104.
  • Presentation: Consolidation in the Food System

Week 3

  • The Case Against Deli Meat. Lane Brown. New Yorker, November 19, 2024.
  • Power Steer. Michael Pollan, The New York Times Magazine, March 31, 2002.
  • Optional reading: Lander, Brian, Mindi Schneider, & Katherine Brunson. 2020. A history of pigs in China: From curious omnivores to industrial pork. Journal of Asian Studies, 79(4), 865-889.
  • Field Trip #1

Week 4

  • Lawsuit Highlights Why Meat Has Been Overpriced for 40 Years. David Dayen. American Prospect. October 3, 2023.
  • Undercover in a Chicken Factory. Steve Striffler. Utne Reader, January/February 2004.
  • Optional reading: Stull, Donald D. 2020. Making meat in the time of COVID-19, Anthropology Now, 12(2), 5-17.
  • Presentation/Podcast: “Fuel to Fork – There’s Fossil Fuels in Our Food?” Table Debates, October 24, 2024.

Week 5

  • Food Waste of the Pandemic. David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery. The New York Times, April 11, 2020.
  • How Biogas Could Do More Harm Than Good for the Hog Industry. Cameron Oglesby. Scalawag, March 24, 2022.
  • Optional reading: Bajželj, B., Quested, T. E., Röös, E., & Swannell, R. P. 2020. The role of reducing food waste for resilient food systems. Ecosystem Services, 45, 101140.
  • Presentation: Alternatives to the Hourglass?

Week 6

  • Prisoners in the US are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Food Brands. Robin McDowell and Margie Mason. AP, January 29, 2024.
  • Farmworkers in Florida are Protesting Modern-Day Slavery. Maximillian Alvarez. Jacobin. March 16, 2023.
  • Optional reading: Sbicca, Joshua, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, & Shelby Coopwood. 2020. “Because they are connected”: Linking structural inequalities in farmworker organizing. Human Geography, 13(3), 263-276.
  • Film: McLibel
  • Critical Review of “Eating to Extinction” due.

Week 7

  • The Playbook for Poisoning the Earth. Lee Fang. The Intercept. January 18, 2020.
  • Escaping the Pesticide Trap: Non-Pesticide Management for Agricultural Pests. Gerry Marten. The EcoTipping Points Project, June 2005.
  • Optional reading: Luna, Jessie K. 2020. ‘Pesticides are our children now’: cultural change and the technological treadmill in the Burkina Faso cotton sector. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(2), 449-462.
  • Field Trip #2

Week 8

  • The Family Peach Farm that Became a Symbol of the Food Revolution. Dan Charles. The Salt (NPR), March 15, 2015.
  • How a Vermont Cheesemaker Helps Local Farms Thrive. Jake Price. Civil Eats, September 4, 2024.
  • Optional reading: Meek, David, & Colin R. Anderson. 2020. Scale and the politics of the organic transition in Sikkim, India. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 44(5), 653-672.
  • Film: Agroecology: Various Approaches in Europe

Week 9

  • Food Co-ops Grow Up. Gail Nickel-Kailing. GoodFood World, December 9, 2010.
  • How Employee Ownership Helped Phoenix Coffee Survive Covid-19. Mark Oprea. Cleveland Scene, December 31, 2020.
  • Optional reading: Open Markets Institute. 2020. Redeeming the Democratic Promise of Agricultural Cooperatives. September.
  • Presentation: Emerging Ecolabels

Week 10

  • Flour Power. Liz Carlisle. Yes! Magazine, Winter 2020.
  • Building the Mecca of Heritage Poultry in Kansas. Twilight Greenaway. Civil Eats, August 23, 2018.
  • Optional reading: Blesh, Jennifer, et al. 2023 “Against the odds: Network and institutional pathways enabling agricultural diversification.” One Earth 6.5: 479-491.
  • Field Trip #3

Week 11

  • This City Made Access to Food a Right of Citizenship. Frances Moore Lappe. Yes! Magazine, January 29, 2019.
  • Incredible Edible. Yorkshire Town’s Food-Growing Scheme Takes Root Worldwide. Naomi Larsson. The Guardian, May 9, 2018.
  • Optional reading: Blesh, Jennifer, Leslie Hoey, Andrew D. Jones, Harriet Friedmann & Ivette Perfecto. 2019. Development pathways toward “zero hunger”. World Development, 118, 1-14.
  • Presentation: Carolyn Steel. March 30, 2016.
  • Critical Review of 1 book or 3 films due (select from https://creator.zoho.com/howardp/books-and-films/#View:CFA_books_and_films_View)

Week 12

  • The Revolution That Died on Its Way to Dinner. Joe Fassler. The New York Times, February 9, 2024.
  • A Side of Grasshoppers. Eric Gomez. ESPN, April 13, 2018.
  • Optional reading: IPES-Food. 2022. Lead author Philip Howard. The Politics of Protein: Examining Claims About Livestock, Fish, ‘Alternative Proteins’ and Sustainability. Brussels, Belgium: International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.
  • Field Trip #4

Week 13

  • The Chef Restoring Appalachia’s World Class Food Culture. Eric J. Wallace. Atlas Obscura, January 10, 2020.
  • Hold the Salt: The Promise of Little Fresh Fishes. Paul Tullis. Hakai Magazine, August 24, 2020.
  • Optional reading: Naylor, R. L., Hardy, R. W., Buschmann, A. H., et al. Bush, 2021. A 20-year retrospective review of global aquaculture. Nature, 591(7851), 551-563.
  • Film: Regreening the Desert

Week 14

  • How to Get Unpasteurized Milk. Robin Watson. Hour Detroit. September 19, 2023.
  • The Secret Resistance Behind the World’s Most Dangerous Cheese. Mark Hay. The Outline, March 31, 2020.
  • Optional reading:  Guerrero Lara, L., Van Oers, L., Smessaert, J., Spanier, J., Raj, G., & Feola, G. 2023. Degrowth and agri-food systems: a research agenda for the critical social sciences. Sustainability Science, 18(4), 1579-1594.
  • Presentation: Slow Food

Final Exam: Self-Evaluation