It's been an amazingly busy couple of weeks, partly (well, mostly) because of some exams I had to write. Nevertheless, as of today, I am finally finished writing them (cross my fingers for a good outcome) and can sit back and relax..a bit.
 |
| Of course we had to pet the horses at the farm! |
My new courses this semester are going pretty well. The first one is called Agricultural Cropping Systems, where my tiny class of 10 or so students discuss and learn about sustainable cropping systems, and focus on different kinds of crop rotations and appropriate cover crops. Last Monday, we went on a field excursion to a few farms between Uppsala and Enköping, which is a small town just an hour south from Uppsala. Interestingly enough, this is where the wrench was invented, as we learned during the excursion. This little tid bit proved to be a bit ironic for the Italian and Spaniard in the class, as apparently in their languages, the wrench is called an "English tool."
 |
| Sju Gårdar |
The dairy farm we visited
Sju Gårdar, a well-known local and ecologically-friendly dairy company. The dairy cows live here, so the milk is completely locally-produced and sold in the large supermarkets. I later learned that though local companies such as Sju Gårdar exist, they are overshadowed by one large dairy producer, Arla. Though Arla is a local company, it often obtains its milk from Sweden's close neighbour, Denmark, making it somewhat deceiving to its consumers, while putting small dairy farmers in Sweden out of business. Sju Gårdar is gaining popularity, though, and has a stable support base from the younger generation - eco-conscious or hippie SLU students :)
 |
| Playing in the willow farm |
We also visited a farm where willows are grown for burning/fuel, and irrigation for these willows is performed using wastewater from the households in Enköping. I find this topic particularly fascinating (having been brainwashed in the safe nutrient course), and really like how the willows require no extra inputs, as the wastewater also provides sufficient nutrients for good growth of the willows.
The number of students in the class is just 10 or so, with about 50% being Swedes and the other half being a mess of international students. I've found that in my courses so far, there's far too much segregation between the Swedish and the foreign students. I'm serious; you walk into class, and on one side of the room it's all blonde hair/fashionable students, and the other side it's a mish-mash of people from all over the world. Even in my other course, there are just two Swedes, and they will always in the back corner of the room, away from the rest the group. Their attitudes are understandable in some ways, but would be so much better if we were able to mingle a bit more. In this course, though, perhaps because of the small number of students and many opportunities for group discussion, it's been a great way to know the Swedish classmates a bit better. I hope this continues, because although I love the international crowd, I find it a bit uncomfortable at times when the two groups are so separated from one another.
 |
| In the summer, the Lake Mälaren becomes a dangerous mess of algal blooms |
As for the other course, it is a masters course called Watershed Management. I have absolutely no background or knowledge on watersheds, but this course is really shedding light on some important issues often overlooked. Did you know that 97.5% of water in the entire world is saltwater, which cannot be consumed? This leaves just 2.5% of the world's supply as fresh water, of which 70% is frozen in the glaciers. In the end,
less than 1% of the world's supply of water is accessible for us to use and is renewable.
We have focused several of our lectures on eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, which has become a huge concern for environmentalists in the nordic countries. Overfishing is a major cause of the eutrophication, because as society demands for and consumes large predatory fish (think: cod and salmon), this reduces the number of zooplankton that are consumed in the sea. The large population of zooplankton can consume lots of phytoplankton. When phytoplankton die, they start to sediment and fall to the bottom of the sea. This creates an anaerobic (oxygen-depleted) environment in the water because of a higher activity of decomposers that use up the oxygen This creates a good environment for algae to grow, creating algal blooms, which are very toxic for aquatic species (and humans who might want to take a swim during the smmer months!). Water is scarce, important for the entire ecosystem, and should not be wasted and polluted. Predatory fish should not be over-consumed if you want to keep the water safe and clean.
I also have to write a term paper in this course; since the topic can be anything pertaining to water, I decided to continue with my interest in wastewater recycling; I'm going to focus my research paper on the effects of wastewater recycling on nutrient availability and uptake in agricultural crops, the region of interest being B.C. It's a topic that few have researched at SLU, so hopefully I can find some good information online and get the ball rolling. I chose to focus on B.C. because I recently read on the
City of Abbotsford website that the treatment wastewater is simply dumped into the Fraser River, which I think is a huge waste, considering the fact that there are so many farms in this region that could benefit from using this water for irrigation. Anyway, more research to come :)
In other news, today I read the flier for one of the supermarkets, and was ecstatic to read that it's displaying
"Amerikansk fast food och snacks" - in translation, I'll be stocking up on big fat jars of peanut butter this week!!
