As a whole, the FARM course has been one of the best courses I’ve taken at Furman, and it has certainly been the most unique. I also believe that the information I gained in the course should be of the highest importance for anyone who is a part of our global food system. This makes the FARM course perhaps the most relevant and practical study away program, and I would recommend it to any Furman student. First of all, the course heavily reinforced my confidence in my choice to follow the vegan diet. Especially in the United States of America, the cesspool of selfishness, most people follow diets for their own health and preservation. Regardless of how healthy veganism makes me, taking this course has furthered my understanding of how interconnected our food consumption practices can be with the Earth and the other species that inhabit it. Therefore, I have no desire to participate in food practices in which animals that were at one time wild, autonomous creatures are bred for domestication, and enslaved to the human species for the “improvement” of our diets. While I am opposed to all forms of animal agriculture throughout history because I believe we forfeited our right to eat other animals upon our invention of farming and accompanying separation from the rest of the animal species, I was especially bothered by the conventional forms of animal agriculture that I observed on this trip. In those systems, animal life was valued purely for its economic value, as the workers within these systems confirmed over and over again that of course they did not abuse the animals, because if the animals weren’t healthy, their meat would not be as high quality and would not demand as high a premium from the consumer. Within many of the organic / small-scale / “animal welfare” livestock facilities we visited, the workers and owners at least had an awareness and respect for the value of non-human life.

Other than helping me to validate my vegan diet, this trip also challenged me on some of my other food consumption practices that are lacking in ethical awareness and should be improved in the future. I currently consume too much food from a system that treats plant life and the land much in the same way that I criticize the conventional meat industry for. Non-organic forms of agriculture and the over-processing of food are making an arrogant statement to the Earth that it is incapable of providing for our ever growing desires, and that we can strip it bare of anything that is useful to us, proceeding then to distort and modify those resources to create barely recognizable forms of what once was a beautiful gift. While I am sometimes disgusted with the human species and wish that I could return to my hunter-gatherer roots, my socialized dependence on modern conveniences that have rendered me soft and weak would prevent me from ever making that decision if it were even possible. On a more positive note, human greatness is evidenced by our ability to contemplate questions such as these, and this greatness can be both a marvelous tool and weapon of mass destruction. I will do my best to use my greatness as a human being to live out a life of stewardship and encourage others to do the same, rejecting an attitude of domination towards the rest of creation.