Final Thoughts

I found the guest lecture by Peter Motavalli the most interesting because I think the challenge of feeding the world is going to become a very real problem in my lifetime. Even modest estimations predict another 3 billion people in the world in the next 50-70 year. Seeing as 1 in 8 people in this world currently don’t have enough to eat, I can’t imagine what the future will be like. I found Motavalli’s general knowledge about how much food American’s waste each year and why developing countries aren’t on the same level as the US. His potential solutions were also very interesting because they touch on other issues like women’s rights by doing things like making an effort to reach women to teach them how to grow vegetables. I also found the section about how the food market is so intertwined really cool. I always wondered why prices went up on certain food products and it makes sense now when you look at the whole food system. Everyone needs to eat and agricultural is a topic that isn’t talked about as much but is so crucial to everyone’s daily life.

Learning about Argentina was really insightful because I thought I knew a lot about South America and I really didn’t. My aunt is from Brazil so I know a decent amount about Brazil but Brazil is so different from a lot of other South American countries. I previously always thought of Argentina in terms of people who I knew who went to Buenos Ares. And while Buenos Ares is a huge part of Argentinean culture I don’t think it gives a full picture of the country. I learned a lot about politics and how differently the government is set up there. Although it is modeled after the US system, there are a lot of problems with corruption in their government. However, I think this is pretty common for developing countries and developing democratic systems. It is easy to forget but there were once (and still instances of) corruption issues within the US government system. However Argentinean citizens seem to pretty aware of these issues and much like our government at one time, things are starting to slowly change.

The intersection of corruption, drug trafficking and sex trafficking was also interesting to learn about. It is easy to think these are all separate problems but in Argentina they are all interconnected. This is why fixing the problem isn’t as easy as outsiders want it to be. Overall, I feel like learning so much about a country helps you to understand.