CPSC 116: The Global Food Production Web

The class focuses on several important crops (and food from those crops) in each of eight groups: the cereals, food legumes, oilseeds, tubers, beverages, spices, industrial, and medicinal.

The crops are studied from an historical, biological, ecological, cultural, and economic perspective and touch on the following regions where the crops originated, spread , and continue to be widely grown: Middle America, South America, North Africa & East Asia, Subsahara Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.

In this context, important global issues are discussed such as globalization, biodiversity, sustainability, food security, the environment, population and the global economy.

After taking this class students will:

• have an appreciation of the global food system and the role it plays in globalization

• understand important linkages between production, processing, marketing, and commerce of crops that produce our food, feed, fiber, industrial, and medicinal products that we consume or use everyday.

• be able to discuss global issues of food and agriculture and links to economic development, sustainability, the environment, food security, and population

• understand the significant contribution of non-western cultures to U. S. food and agriculture

Grading are based on the following class activities:

Grades are determined as follows: