The speech delivered by Mark Lynas talks about GMO food. Before watch the video, I just knew the GMO food is not harmful for people’s health, but I do not know how it can bring human benefits. Before he did a large amount of research, he also believe the unnatural GMO food is bad to the human. But his viewpoint changed then. From the speech, Mark talks about GMO food can meet increasing food demand as population increases. Also,  he talks about how GMO food helps to improve the nitrogen pollution. The benefits of GMO food should be spread because it really helps the world. Today, many people have misunderstanding on GMO food because of incorrect information online or word of mouth. They should learn the truth about GMO food.

The lecture that was given by Michele Walfred was about social media. Today’s people especially whose age is below 45 utilizes social media everyday. The development of society cannot without social media. In the past, social media was more used for contacting, and entertainment, however, it gradually expand the purposes now. Media has been an important tool to spread information. Also, entrepreneurs create their company reputation through the media. Lots of example represents that media has been an mainly way to announce a new brand. When people realize a new brand,  they usually search online first too. It benefits us a lot, however, some people use media without care. For example, students attack others online and use bad attitude. These bad record may found by their  future companies. Therefore, a good attitude and habit to review online is important. Mrs. Walfred said we should ensure our social media is consistent. Overall, It will bring benefits if I use it appropriately.

Mark Davis gave the lecture about the horse racing industry in Delaware. Racing industry can be traced back to the 12 century. The British settlers brought horse racing  to the U.S in 1665, and the first horse track was in Long Island. I realized that racing industry is one of the oldest competition of all sports. As the technology developed, horse racing industry were decaying and the amount of competition was decreasing. I learned that horse was divided into two kind of species that are thoroughbreds horses and harness horses. Usually, the cost of thoroughbreds horses are more expensive than harness horses, and harness horses race more than thoroughbreds horses. Besides, horse racing industry increases the job opportunities, such as horseman, competitors, driver, trainer and managers. Partly as a result, it promotes economic progress and can help to reserve the old cultural. I am interested in riding horse because I thought it is a kind of exciting sport. I am pleasure to hear the lecture from Mark Davis about such professional knowledge.

From this lecture, Dan Severson focused on the livestock industry. His lecture allowed me to realize that 96 percent of family farm is family owned. Then, he explained more about farmer’s life and give data to predict the development of livestock industry in the future. Also, I learned that the agriculture production of Delaware ranked number one in the U.S. Also, Dan Severson introduced the top three largest meat products are pork, beef and poultry.The amount of goat and sheep milk also keeps increasing constantly. Besides, he talked about different  phenomenon of livestock industry and agriculture. For example, the cultivation of apiaries and bison were also increasing. I appreciate hearing the speaking offered by Dan Severson, he taught and help me to understand the agricultural market and economy today.

The lecture given by James Adkins was talking about irrigation system. As the beginning of his speaking, he gave an interesting history about irrigation system. The irrigation system has been existed for thousand years  since Mayan empire. He described how Mayan people utilized Nile River and their irrigation system. Since then, the irrigation system became more efficient and productive. Agriculture is an important industry comparing with other industries. As agriculture develops, the need for water in agriculture increase rapidly. Therefore, the update of irrigation system become more important than before, because it helps to save water resource efficiently. Also, he introduced different varieties of irrigation ways  such as sprinker irrigation,surface irrigation and sub irrigation. Although the cost of irrigation system is not cheap, even expensive, it improves the efficiency of Agriculture and represent the Agriculture has been developing a new mode which will not need large amount of labors in the future.

For  the third trip to Hoober’s company, we learned a lot about precision agriculture. We talked about what does precision agriculture about and how it can be used in agriculture. Thought this trip, I saw how does technology are developing through these years, such as new tractors, combines and drone. These advanced equipments improve the efficiency of farmer’s work well. Especially the ability of drone is strong. It can scout a large area of field in a high efficiency. As it flied above the field,  I believe that It can displaced the old ways of mapping and observing the field totally and found more agricultural problems. The most interesting part of this trip is that two students drive the tractor as a group, as well as the workers explained the operations and knowledge patiently. Overall, from this trip, I realized how technology promote  the agriculture and how the technology develop fast now.

On November 4th, we have a meeting that was led by Scott Hopkins at research farm around University of Delaware ‘s south campus. We started with introducing the characteristic UDairy ice cream. Mr. Hopkins then showed us the daily life of poultry in the webbfarm. Although, I learned how cow was fed and the milking processes here. Through the entire processes, we visited the different main areas in the farm.  Although I have class in south campus everyday this semester, I have never walked and observed the surroundings. When I saw the calf and their living environment, I was surprised how they can be arranged and taken care of well.  Usually, these calves stay here for 3 months and they look really cute like a dog. If I have opportunity, I will feed a cow!

Nowadays, lots of foods are labeled with GMO, however, there was a doubt that should we utilize this kind of labels, and whether  GMOs food benefit for human or not.   With GMO food labels, we could know more details about our food, and we have right to know it. It helps specific groups of people to make a decision whether to buy that food or not. For example, it will be more easily for vegetarians, vegans and people who has special religions to determine if GMO food with animal DNA.  However, there are also some disadvantages about labeling GMO.   These labels may lead that people have difficulty on deciding GMO food. On the one hand, They may think GMO food represent a kind of unhealth, and then lead to the decrease of sales volume; but on the other,  it will make GMO labeling system become expensive and caused the companies’ interest. Although consumers are easily to determine the food ingredients and determine if it is GMO food, there are part of groups who are not familiar with the true implications. They usually think GMO food with labeling represent a kind of warning to them. With GMO labeling, it let some people misunderstand that food with GMO label is not healthy, but actually, there is no such conclusion or evidence show that non-GMO will hurt people.

The first trip field I had was my favorite trip to an organic poultry farm which hold 4 poultry houses. Each poultry houses have enough space inside and outside to provide chicken’s free movement. This was my first experience with close contacting with chickens. I was surprised of chicken’s quantities in each poultry houses. When I tried to get close to them, they always move away. Through the trip to Georgie Cartanza’s farm, I learned lots of advanced agricultural technology that are used on feeding chickens. Usually, these technology producers help saving large amount of labors and update the old feeding ways. For example, the chickens can be fed automatically. There were automatic system to provide more food if the food capacity decreased. Also,  another successful improvement is that the temperature can be regulated automatically instead of operating by hand. All of this equipment and technology were used for improving chicken’s quantities.