Revised Documentary

This is the revised version of my documentary; it took forever to upload and it's a bit longer than before but I think it's better.

https://www.wevideo.com/hub/#media/ci/126355099

Documentary

Here is the 5 minute documentary I did on my food production systems.

https://www.wevideo.com/hub/#media/ci/123559680?timelineId=123027603

This is just the first draft; I'm currently working on my final that will be presented in the "Sophomore Experience Food Production Film Festival" at Bioscience High School on Friday along with every other Sophomore's.

Italian Wheat: Impacts

The production of wheat in Italy has had both environmental and human impacts:

• Recent bad wheat (durum) harvests  have increased pasta prices in Italy
• Also biofuels, which convert crops to energy, have increased wheat prices because of the high demand, which leads to increased pasta prices
• Italy exports pasta to other places to help their economy and also consumes a lot.
• Italy uses approximately 2200 liters per m^2 for agriculture (wheat included)
• Plow natural land for farming (habitat loss)
• Use fossil fuels transporting wheat and fueling tractors/combine machines
  

*Cited from

Spiegel Onlin (2007): Spaghetti Shock in Italy: Biofuels Boom Results in Pricey Pasta. Online Article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/spaghetti-shock-in-italy-biofuels-boom-results-in-pricey-pasta-a-493795.html

Italian Wheat

Since I've researched the past Roman wheat process, I then researched the current Italian wheat process:

Modern Wheat Uses

• Pasta
• Bread
• Porridge
• Baked Goods
• Cereals
• Sweets
• Breaded Food
• Flour
  

Production, Consumption, and Trade

• Produce 7,478 TMT (thousand metric tons) of wheat
• Produce both durum and soft wheat
• Consume 11,256 TMT
• Export 2,718 TMT
• Import 6,371 TMT
• 9th largest exporter
• 13th largest consumer
• Soft wheat from France and other central-eastern European countries

Production

• Test to see if soil is viable for planting
• Break top soil to add seeds (commercial tiller)
• Add fertilizing agents
• Seeds planted in furrows using a wheat drill attached to tractor
• Water 
• Insecticides and Pesticides
• Combine machine harvests wheat
  

*Cited from

Wheat- World Supply and Demand Summary. Online Article: http://www.spectrumcommodities.com/education/commodity/statistics/wheat.html

How is Wheat Grown and Harvested? Online Article: http://www.wisegeek.org/how-is-wheat-grown-and-harvested.htm

Roman Wheat: Sustainability, Needs, Values, Perspectives, & Impacts

I would say that the Ancient Roman production of wheat was not sustainable. As mentioned in my previous post, their system required many people since they didn't have access to the inventions we have currently. There was many people required to grow the wheat: people to plow the fields, add manure, maintain the fields (e.g. weeding), people to thresh the grains, sieve it, and create meal. This all was a fairly long process that didn't provide much profit.

The emperors in the Roman Empire desperately wanted to avoid famine, so they would make farmers donate much of their excess grains in the form of taxes to feed the poor for free. This definitely did not encourage farmers to grow much excess since their taxes would be higher, meaning that Rome ended up not having much grain in storage.

Grain was such a staple of the Roman diet though, so Rome had to have grain imported from Egypt, Sicily, and the Mediterranean . The Roman Empire so desperately needed grain that the punishments for importers who stopped before delivering the grain to Ostia (official Roman port) included deportation and execution.

Depiction of Ostia

It can also be inferred that wheat production led to an increase in slaves owned. There was many people needed and slaves often worked the fields in Ancient Rome, so more wheat would mean more slaves being sold. As for the environment, wheat production helped lead to expansion of the Roman Empire. People were being fed, they were having children, and the Empire expanded along with population. This meant settling more land and using up more resources in the environment. There needed to be more livestock as well so more vegetation was being lost to feed them. This meant less food for other animals who also relied on what the livestock ate which might mean less food for its predators as well.


*Cited from

Roberts, Paul. Agriculture and Food Production in Roman Antiquity. Online Article: https://www.academia.edu/1580228/Roman_Agriculture_and_Food_Production)

Roman Wheat

Here I have jotted down some interesting information on the process wheat went through in Ancient Rome.

(All before 171 BC)
Housing and Hierarchy in Roman Villas

• Two forms of cultivated land: farm and garden
• Every Roman had a garden for root vegetables, salads, and potted herbs
• Gardens produced food all year long
• Garden near farmhouse for women to garden between chores
• Wild plants were gathered deemed unfit for human consumption (except nettles, mushrooms, and asparagus)
• Mostly done by men, but women could hoe
• Slaves were common, but free-laborers were also employed
• Slaves were a commodity charged along with oil, grain, textile, oil, and wine production
• Villas (Roman country house upper class ) divided into pastores and those under the supervision of the vicillus
• Those under the supervision of the vicillus farmed, while the pastores cared for livestock under the supervision of the magister pecoris.
• Each villa also had its own smiths, carpenters, and potters
• Slaves lived within the villa and were paid in grain
• Killing of work animals deemed equal to killing a slave

Drawing of an Ancient Roman Villa

Food

• Cereals constituted the majority of the Roman diet
• Romans consumed both homegrown and imported fruits like: apples, apricots, peaches, pears, plums, and melons.
• Cultivated fruit and citrus trees
• Evidence from Spain shows Romans produced pomegranates, figs, grapefuit, lemons, dates, oranges, and limes.
• Nuts consumed: walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, and chestnuts
• Roots, legumes, greens, and salads were cultivated in the gardens and in farmland.
• Chicory, broccoli, broad beans, lentils, peas lettuce, fennel, beets, onions
  

Tools

• Made mainly of wood and iron
• Spade was wooden with an iron pick 
• Two pronged forks used in tending orchards and vineyards
• Three pronged forks used in tending gardens and vineyards
• Three pronged forks, pitchforks/hay-forks
• Three pronged forks, or hoes broke up soil in vineyards
• Roman balanced sickle to cut crops (esp. cereals)  along with the British long-scythe
• The vallus was invented to stop the manual cutting of crops; it was a cart pulled by an animal (esp. a  mule) with teeth attached to cut the crops (esp. corn)
• Mobile greenhouse moves with the passage of the sun 

  

  Roman Vallus

Methods (Planting)

• Forcing plants into  early bloom be filling a trench around them with hot water (cucumbers)
• Manure usually made out of animal dung, but could also be made from kitchen waste, charcoal, and ash
• Manure often transferred to the field in baskets, water in buckets

  

  Manure

Maintenance:

• Digging, weeding, pruning, harvesting, and fertilizing

Harvest

• Cereals required threshing after harvesting (separate grain from plant)
• Used threshing boards to separate grain from chaff (wooden board with slate and razors)
• Would also winnow (throw grain into air so heavier grains fell while lighter chaff blew away)

  

  Winnowing

Storage

• Dry, cool, and free from vermin
• Grains in granaries on upper floors, natural caves, silos

Creating Meal

• Women ground grain by hand
• Rub grain between two stones in a circular motion (saddle-quern method)
• Rotary hand mill
• Donkey/Pompeian Mill

Product

• Coarse meal (not flour)
• Fineness could be adjusted by repeating the grinding
• Sieves used to separate finer grains

  

  Wheat Meal

Preparation

• Bread was often made
• White flour bread (highest value) to brain (lowest value)
• Roman women made their own bread, elite hired cooks or purchased bread
• After grinding and sieving meal, water, yeast, and dough were added to produce dough
• Machines for kneading
• Stone basin with cylindrical basin with a spindle projecting the paddles to turn
• Dough then rose, moistened, and baked
• Also made porridge from wheat
  

Grain Market

• Roman emperors were mainly concerned with feeding everybody
• Farmers had higher taxes the more grain they grew, so this didn't give them incentive to produce more.
• Had to donate most of their surplus as tax to feed the poor for free, leaving little to help make profit
• Roman farms produced few crops and required many people, so they didn't really export wheat, they had imports of it from Egypt, Sicily, Tunisia, and other Mediterranean areas.
• Importers were required to take the grains directly to Ostia (official Roman port) to be weighed, checked for quality, and then sent on barges to the rest of Rome for repackaging and redistribution.

*Cited from

Roberts, Paul. Agriculture and Food Production in Roman Antiquity. Online Article: https://www.academia.edu/1580228/Roman_Agriculture_and_Food_Production)

The Economy and Trade of Ancient Rome. Online Article:http://mrfarshtey.net/whnotes/Roman_economy.pdf

Following the Process

I asked my humanities teacher if I should focus on just agriculture in Ancient Rome or if I should try to cover all of their main food production systems. He said that it would be more meaningful if I followed one type of crop produced in Ancient Rome from preparation of planting to trading.

This also allows me to compare the past process for this crop to the modernized version. I'm going to be studying the process of wheat since it was important and abundant during that time (paid slaves in grains, made machines to harvest grains).

Bioscience Garden (Day 2)

Today, I and most of the people from last week's meetup, worked on continuing our progress in creating a garden at Bioscience High School. Today was all about actually creating our garden.

First we had to plan out the design of the rectangular section of ground. We had sixteen herbaceous plants (e.g. sage, lavender) to incorporate, and we had three main spouts sticking out of the ground to water them from.

There was a bit of confusion and we had to rethink our design a few times. It was originally going to be rows of herbs with some annuals intermixed, but the water wouldn't reach all of those plants; so then it was going to be a circular basin, but some people said it wasn't big enough so we made it square, then eventually with some advice from our teacher we settled on a final design. A circular basin formed around each spout, and we planted 5-6 in each basin.

The plants themselves were pretty easy to place in the ground. Besides the plastic wrapping at the top of the plant, the container was used to help the plants grow. Holding the soil and plant in place was peet moss, which we crumpled and then added on top of the soil.

We made three basins, and watered each to help the plants grow, and to also ensure that we could see if the water was spreading evenly. The first time we added water, the water pooled into one section, so we had to dig a bit more.

Finally, the water spread out, and we were done gardening for the day.

We tried to take a group picture at the end, but many of the people left beforehand, so we weren't able to get everyone, but there were about twice as many people there who helped volunteer than are displayed in the picture.

All in all it was a successful day.

 The only concern I do have is that when we were digging out basin, we unearthed the base of the spout we had taken the top off of last week. We then proceeded to lose sight of the basin in the dirt again, so it might cause a problem with flooding in the future. If that does present a problem, I'm sure we'll be able to identify the source of the flooding and find the spout again. For now, it doesn't seem to be a concern, but we'll wait and see.

Past Food Production Evaluation

In my project, the food production system I'm focusing on that of the Ancient Romans. I'm trying to evaluate

• The needs, values, and perspectives that drove them to use this food system
• What processes were used to develop and implement this food system?
• What were the impacts of this food system on humans and this environment as a whole?
• Was this food production system sustainable, why or why not?

I'm starting with Ancient Roman agriculture.

Perennial Plants

It turns out that planting a garden in fall was a good idea for both us and the plants. It wasn't too hot to be outside for over an hour, and also it turns out that most perennials grow best in spring and fall. I 'm focusing my search on edible perennials since we are trying to create a food production system. I think it would be best to try to plant some perennials the Romans planted since that's the ancient society I'm focusing on. I'm pretty sure we're going to be picking from the perennials my teacher already has, so if she has any of these or any other herbs, I'd prefer them.

Some perennials I had in mind:

• Lovage: I've actually never heard of this, but apparently it's a tall herb plant that can grow up to 7 ft tall. It's often used in soups and salads. Unfortunately there's sometimes aphid problems, which requires the hosing off of these pests. There's also sometimes leafminers, which means that the affected leaves have to be removed and destroyed. Soil should be 60 Fahrenheit.

  

  Lovage

• Chives: An herb that grows 30-50cm tall and is often used to flavor, along with other herbs such as parsley and tarragon. The main pests are aphids and thrips.

  

  Chives

• Tarragon: Grows best in the winter, and is also an herb plant used largely for flavoring as well as oil. It can get fungus that causes "Tarragon rust" because of poor air circulation.

  

  Tarragon

Any suggestions for perennials or advice on planting or handling pests? Feel free to comment.

Bioscience Garden

This Monday I had the opportunity to participate in the beginnings of a garden (food production system) at Bioscience High School. We had a strip of land to work with that was filled with yucca plants, and a circle of dirt that had been used for a previous garden. I was with the group working on the section with Yucca plants.

Yucca plant being removed

The first thing we had to do was to pull out the plants occupying the space so we could plant our own food.
We pulled out the Yucca plants using shovels and spades we took from the school garage. We had to preserve the roots of the plants because the maintenance crew was going to plant them elsewhere on the school campus, so we had to dig farther into the ground, but we managed to preserve most of the yuccas. There were also some twig-like plants that we were able to pull out with just our hands.

All the plants we dug out

Unfortunately, during the process of digging out the yuccas with shovels, the head of a water spout was taken out. We didn't manage to find the place it was torn out of, which we will most certainly have to do tomorrow. If we don't replace the head of the spout, when it waters the plants it could potentially flood the ground, leading to over watering which could hinder growth.

Besides the taken out water spout, the rest of the hour and a half was generally a success. After all of the plants had been removed, we turned the dirt and added black dirt that contained more minerals for the future plants.

Black Dirt

We plan to plant tomorrow (12/2). In the meantime, our biochem teacher asked us to think of perennial plants we'd like to include in our food production system. Perennial plants are optimal because they grow back without having to plant them again. I'm currently doing some research on which edible perennials grow well in fall.

*Sorry for the late update, this weeks been busy and the pictures weren't uploading.

Change of Plans

     At the beginning of this project I decided that I wanted to participate in two food production systems: my friend's fish farm, and my own garden. Just recently I was advised not to do this because my experiences would seem confusing and less meaningful in the documentary I'm planning to make.
 
     Instead, starting today, I'm going to participate in creating a garden at my school along with other students and one of my biochemistry teachers (I'll post some pictures tonight). Agriculture and gardens in general were a big part of Ancient Roman food production, so I think this is a better option than the fish farm.

Fish Farm

This Friday (11/15) I had the opportunity to visit my friend's small fish farm in Laveen. Her family owns a larger one, but this one was closer and more convenient for the time (we plan to visit the larger one later). We fed the fish, took some pictures, and measured the PH level (6) and temperature (17C or 62.6F).

Fish Food (the fish are fed twice a day)

Measuring Temperature (17C)

Set-up (includes filter)

Young fish

Part of the Filter

Blog Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to document my progress as I explore the food production systems of Ancient Rome, current Italy, and local systems in Phoenix, Arizona for my Semester 1 Final Exam. Through these following months I hope to gain knowledge and experience in food production systems and sustainability.