The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement signed in February with Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, U.S., Vietnam, Chile, Brunei, Singapore, and New Zealand. According to the U.S. government’s website, the major benefits of the TPP for us include elimination of thousands of taxes on Made in America exports, helps small businesses benefit from global trade, promote internet purchases and preserve an “Open Internet”. It aims to promote a single market and to increases regulation on agricultural products. Critics accuse the TPP of secretive negotiations and that it favors large, multinational corporations. Critics also say that TPP will compromise the safety of our food by opening up many more imports with already a lack of funds. All in all the benefits and concerns seem to overlap with what is true and not true. Its difficult  for an average person to get the facts and not a tilted view.

Our last field trip of the semester was to our own UD farm. As a pre-vet major, I had been on and taken classes on the farm before. Scott Hopkins, the farm superintendent, taught us about the social lives of bees and specifically what a “swarm” of bees was. I had never known much about them so it was very interesting to me to get insight into the lives of bees. We also went to the horse barn and Scott explained to us that horses are very challenging to work with  because they have very stubborn temperaments and are not seen as livestock animals anymore. Their transition to being considered pets has created some challenges for what they are to do with the horses, especially because they are a lot to care for. Land is in short supply as sustaining it and maintaining resources pose the greatest challenges for future farm operations.

The last guest speaker for the semester was David Mayonado, a technology development representative from Monsanto. He explained how important it is to keep developing new ways to improve the efficiency of growing food for our growing population. His company uses many revolutionary products such as GMOs. GMOs are genetically modified organisms. They are used to increase yield, better control of weeds, decrease the amount of pesticides applied to crops and improve soil quality. As time goes on the efficiency of growing food continues to increase. Besides GMOs the newest thing is called RNAi. RNA interference silences certain genes so that certain proteins are not produced and when pests such as rootworms eat it, it acts as a virus turns off genes needed to move proteins around in worm and it kills the worm. This is being developed in corn, potato and tomato plants for their respective pests.

Dan Severson, the New Castle County Extension Agent, came to speak with us about the livestock industry in Delaware. He explained that almost all farms are family owned farms but only 2% of the US population is involved in farming. The amount of animals has steadily declined since WWII because we are figuring out how to make them more efficient growers. The number of farms has also declined as there is a shift from many tiny farms to a few large farms.  We have the least expensive, most abundant and safest food compared to the rest of the world.

James Adkins came in to speak to us about irrigation in farming. He began his lecture by explaining how irrigation for crops has been a vital part of agriculture since its beginning many thousands of years ago. When people first were figuring out how to farm, farmers relied solely on the flooding of the Nile. Today, farmers have many different technologies and far more reliable methods than waiting for a flood when it comes to irrigating crops. Different heads can be attached to the standard pivot irrigation systems to apply a more precise amount of water – more to the areas that need it and less to the areas that do not. Maps can be made with drones that show how the crops is doing in terms of needing more or less water. Farmers can adjust their watering applications accordingly so they do not waste any water.  With the new technology,present day farmers can be more precise with water applications and therefore have better yields of crops and more profits.