1. Spriggs convinced me that buying local matters because the amount of greenhouse gasses we make in shipping produce and the amount of pollutants that affect water, soil, and air will eventually destroy our earth. Spriggs establishes the importance or greener living by explaining how industrial sized farming harms soil fertility and results in costly equipment and fuel whereas a small farm is more efficient and has a cycle to how things are grown and harvested. Spriggs supports her claims with first hand evidence from a from a family friend who "...taught [me] firsthand about the effects of buying local".
2. Spriggs addresses counter arguments by stating that although buying locally will inevitably cause a change in global market, it will open doors to conversations about environmentalism which Spriggs then briefly explains that the U.S. government follows behind the European Union in environmental legislation. Spriggs also brings forward how those who argue that decentralization of food production is bad are also ignoring positive outcomes of small farms in local economies such as cheaper shipping costs, permanent local jobs, and higher local retail sales.
3. I find that Spiggs’ essay is more effective when she explains why polyculture farms are more sustainable than industrial sized farms since the variety of crops do not exhaust the land. Spiggs explains how rotating crops and using land in a cycle keeps it healthy and fertilized which industrial farms lack. Spiggs gives a first hand witnessing of how one farmer she knew used his pigs to plow his blueberry field by setting up the pigpen around the area so that they would walk over the field. These characteristics of evidence and experience make her essay more powerful to viewers who might be skeptical towards the idea of buying local.
4. Fig. 1 features mixed squash at a farmers market with a sign inbetween them that reads “Organic winter squash $.60…” Spriggs uses this photo to give an example of how to support a local economy and to also show one of the many things that are sold to the public at a farmers market. Figure two shows a small polyculture farm with several people working in the field. The photo shows several types of crops grown in the foreground and then greenhouses in the back. Spriggs most likely wanted to exploit the fact that there are multiple uses of a single parcel of land in the picture which shows how much more efficient small farms are than large, industrial farms like the one shown on figure 3. Figure three shows an aerial view of a large, single crop farm. There is nothing more shown than a large field of one crop and a small landing where a few cielo’s and a home are. Lastly, figure four shows tractor-trailers on the interstate with the caption, “Interstate trucking is expensive financially and ecologically”. This photo appeals to the part in Spriggs’ essay when she explains that shipped food is much more expensive and the amount of fossil fuels used is creating too much green gas.
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