Students Speak Out! #7

Dr. Chona Abeledo [Farming on Water? An Aquaculture Story]

Ms. Chona Abeledo is an awarded scientist in the Philippines who talked about aquaculture at our event. As the first speaker, she first talked about how agriculture is concentrated on farmers and land concerns most of the time. Many people aren’t aware of the importance or even existence of agriculture on water. Through the talk, she highlighted the harmful effects of plastics on our environment, as well as climate change. It was interesting to learn that fishes were suffocating underwater because of the warming temperatures and increase in carbon dioxide. The talk not only made the audience aware of the pressing problems but also advocated for things that can be done by a regular person. Dr. Chona recommended everyone lessen their carbon footprint, buy locally, and discouraged the purchase of single-use plastics. During the Question and Answer session, she was asked by an elementary school student and other audiences, and she responded to the questions with great answers.

Mr. Michael Magnaye [Small Business, Big Food]

Mr. Mike on the other hand is the second speaker. Different from what Dr. Chona has discussed, Mr. Mike focused on the Food business of his own family and how food can be efficiently distributed/ consumed. He also introduced the importance of finding local food sources and ethical business practices in urban farming. In the end, Mr. Mike was tackling the problems of food waste and pollution. He has given the key steps to lessen our impacts and let the audience think about how it might surprise us about how our food comes to our plates. In the question and answer, one of the audiences asked him how to avoid unethical food business companies. He then answered that it’s almost impossible to fully avoid them; however, what we can do is firstly be aware. Because after all, awareness is the first step before taking action.

Dr. Armand Rola [Agriculture and Food Education]

The last invited speaker is Dr. Armand Rola from Doshisha University who kindly talked about the general ideas of agriculture and food education, as well as the summary of both the prior speakers. Dr. Rola focused more on explaining what food education is and explained why it is urgent that we take action today. As a field agriculture researcher, he also told stories about his experiences in the Philippines and compared them to his experience in Japan. In addition, he also answered questions about GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms and even advocated how it could be a better alternative to many of our food sources. Towards the end, he was asked about how society can further push awareness about agricultural problems. Finally, the talk ended with him stating that without agriculture, we would have no fancy clothes to wear, no roof over our heads, and no food on our plates.

The event “The Food on Our Plates” was first made because of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2): Zero Hunger. In other countries, March is the month of celebrating Farmers or Agriculture day. Around the world, we have an oversupply of food production, yet there are many people who are still starving. The irony of this depicts just how imbalanced our systems are today. As such, our speakers have addressed problems above and beyond our expectations. Please watch our recording of SSO#7 on our YouTube channel!

We are also inviting you to our next SSO, and our first-ever workshop!

“How to Be a Good Public Speaker“

April 16, 2022

Zoom

5:30-7:30 pm JST; 4:30-6:30 pm PhST; 14:00-16:00 IST

This SSO will be more of a training workshop, teaching those who wish to improve their Public Speaking Skills!