This case study describes the development of Indonesia through Colby- Sustainable Development under the topic of agriculture and using the specific study found at http://personal.colby.edu/personal/t/thtieten/ag-ind.html.  The goals of this development were based off of their concern of their food self sufficiency in rice.  This goal was once reached before however it “came at the expense of the sustainable agricultural development”.  In the past in order to increase the rice output a lot of money was spent on products such as fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation.  The use of all three of those things increased dramatically and by 1986 the cost of the input subsidies reached 725 billion dollars.  As said early on in the module, often a place having a lot of money (or spending a lot of money) means better health.  Later on, years after the constant and inappropriate use of pesticides lead to development downsides.  The downsides from the pesticide included pesticide resistant pests and the “elimination of natural predators that help control pests”.

This case study describes the fertilizer that helps Peruvian Coffee growers improve livelihoods through a global coalition for sustainable agricultural development called Farming First found at http://www.farmingfirst.org/2011/01/credit-for-fertilizer-helps-peruvian-coffee-growers-improve-livelihoods/.  The goals of this development was to benefit the families of coffee growers with the higher income but the development of this program that “provides credit for purchasing fertilizer” lead to even greater developments.  Of course the increase of money often means better health as stated in the first case study however the amount of income was not the only thing that benefitted from this program.  Some of the environmental benefits includes the better habitat for the surrounding trees from the recycling of the pulp residue of the fruit and promote biodiversity.

I have grown up and lived in a central New Jersey town for most of my life and throughout those years I have lived in the same house in South Brunswick next to a corn farm.  Most of my observations of this farm were because the mass amount of corn stalks that would blow over to my yard around the fall season I do remember a significant development that occurred over my time living in the house next door.  There are a lot of deer in New Jersey that cause many problems among farmers and planters.  Although deer do not exactly have an appetite for corn they trample over the beginning stages of it growing. The farmers decided it was a good idea to put a pesticide down on the field.  In their favor, although it costed more to buy the pesticide, in the end it made them more money by being able to sell more corn in the end.  Unlike the pesticide in the first case and very much alike to the second case the pesticide worked in the farmers favor.