Hey! I’m Victoria and I’m a student at the University of Tennessee. Recently as I was washing dishes in the laboratory I work in, (it sounds cooler than it actually is - my job consists of taking care of bugs for a graduate student who is doing research on them and their effect on corn plants) I realized how much of an impact the work in the lab really must have on agriculture around the world. UT’s Ag campus has all kinds of neat research going on that looks at the effects of various things on agriculture. This agriculture is the food we eat every day! So my goal for this blog is to look at agriculture and the different technologies, food sources, restaurants, and their connection to sustainability. Now what is sustainability exactly? I had trouble coming up with a definition for myself, it seemed like I had many different ideas swirling around in my head. According to one of my professors, it is “the social and environmental practices that protect and enhance the human and natural resources needed by future generations to enjoy a quality of life equal to or greater than our own”. According to the random person I asked on the street it is “the ability to sustain”. According to Wikipedia the definition is elusive (just as I thought!) but they quote the United Nations definition from the Brundtland Commission in 1987 which states that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Overall I think to phrase it simply that sustainability is really just what the world needs to do in order to keep us, the human race, alive. We need to drastically reduce our fossil fuel emissions, come up with new energy sources, reduce our levels of deforestation, and most of all ensure that our planet will still be around for the next generation.
So since I’m going to be looking at the connection between agriculture and sustainability I thought it would be fun to focus on a local restaurant that wholeheartedly supports being environmentally friendly and sustainable in their food production. Chipotle, a restaurant very near and dear to us UT students, is just that. The founder, Steve Ells, opened the first restaurant in Denver Colorado in 1993. As he learned of the bad practices that many farmers used to raise livestock in the US, he decided he wanted something different – he wanted to have “food with integrity”(FWI). With this FWI mission in mind, in 2000 they started using pork that came from naturally raised pigs. In 2002 they did the same thing with chickens. They’re working on beef as well. Chipotle also tries to use as much organic produce and products from local farmers as possible. AND they also are working on building more restaurants with sustainable design! With all of this cool info in front of me, I’m ashamed to admit that I have not actually been to Chipotle, though it opened up in Knoxville I think close to year or so ago. But I have heard rave reviews from all of my friends who have been there. Guess I’m going to have to go check out this “food with integrity” for myself. You should too.
P.S. Chipotle has an awesome website with lots of cool pictures and information about how they are doing their best to be as sustainable as possible. Check it out! http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/Default.aspx
