Posted: November 16th, 2015

Choose a food commodity to investigate

Choose a food commodity to investigate
This should be a general commodity and not a brand name (e.g. eggs, beef, wheat, bananas, etc).
Investigating your commodity
After you have chosen your commodity and I have approved it (not required but recommended), you want to conduct in-depth research on your commodity and begin to put your analysis together. Some questions to consider with your analysis are:  Where there any conflicts over the product that has had implications on the commodity chain?  What materials go into making the product and where do the materials come from?    Where does the manufacturing take place?  Or, if this is an agricultural product, where does the planting and harvesting occur?    Who performs the manufacturing or harvesting tasks?  Do they face any environmental or health hazards in their work?  What are the environmental conditions in the countries or areas where the manufacturing or harvesting takes place? What are the political, economic, and labor conditions there?    How did the product get from one point in the commodity chain to another (e.g., from the manufacturer to the place where you bought it, from the supplier of raw materials to the manufacturer, etc.)?  How far did it travel?  What can you say about the environmental impacts of this activity?  What can you say about how this connects you to other parts of the country or the world?  What companies manufacture the product?  What else can you find out about this company?  (Is it part of a larger conglomerate?  Where are the headquarters?  How big is the company?  Etc.)
Answering these questions will require a good amount of work, using a variety of resources—including  library materials and web-based resources. BE SURE TO USE REPUTABLE SOURCES. You will need to use your imagination and your best detective skills in order to complete the assignment.  Even so, you will probably hit some dead-ends in the process.  A few dead-ends are acceptable, but if you have trouble getting any useful information, you should choose a different product.
As you continue your research an expanded outline of your research paper and a list of sources about your commodity will be generated. This is a crucial step in helping complete your commodity chain research paper.
2
Writing your research paper
Your research paper should answer the following questions:
1. Describe the product you have chosen and how it fits into individuals routines.  How often do people consume it?  Why do people consume it? Give some general background  on the product, and ultimately, explain why it is worthy of a commodity chain analysis.
2. Describe the results of your commodity chain analysis and the process by which you came to these results.  Try to describe as much of the full commodity chain as you were able to uncover.  Diagrams might help in some cases but are not required.  Also, be sure to make it clear how you went about getting this information.  Explain what sources you used for different pieces of information (and cite them), so that someone else could, in theory, re-trace the commodity chain and find the same things you found.
3. Explain and describe the hidden social and environmental relationships behind your commodity. How does the production and consumption of this product affect social relationships locally, nationally, globally?
4. Explain some alternative ways of producing and consuming your commodity and how it will improve the social and environmental relationships behind your commodity
5. Conclude with a discussion of what you learned about the social relationships of production and consumption by examining your commodity chain.
Stylistic Guidelines
Stylistic Guideline:
– All assignments must be: 12-14 pages in length; use 12 point times new roman font; have 1” margins around all sides; pages numbered, and all paragraphs must be indented and double-spaced (two spaced between paragraphs, NOT four).
– Give your assignment an interesting title.
– Citations are to be completed in APA format. For this paper, use in-text citations (footnotes or endnotes are not permitted). A good free online guide is available at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
– Source materials (articles, books) to be used for this term paper can only be selected from reputable presses and peer reviewed academic journals.
– A note regarding direct quotes/block quotes: at this stage of your academic career, the ability to synthesize material is crucial. The use of direct/block quotes should be used cautiously and in situations were it only strengthens your argument.

Expert paper writers are just a few clicks away

Place an order in 3 easy steps. Takes less than 5 mins.

Calculate the price of your order

You will get a personal manager and a discount.
We'll send you the first draft for approval by at
Total price:
$0.00
Live Chat+1-631-333-0101EmailWhatsApp