Journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. The bittersweet end. A perpetual date looming in the air, a seemingly mystical day that was never supposed to come. Untill now. Nevertheless, I'm beyond greatful for my time spent in the city (yes, I now know "the city refers to Manhattan-- I used it correctly!). This past

Journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. 08.01.2026 On the West Side of Manhattan, my class and I took a trip to the Javits Center today to tour their massive, seven-story-high steel rooftop garden. Highly sophisticated and engineered, not only did we get to learn about their commercial infrastructure and enjoy the

Background Historically, the infrastructure of the American food system was designed around industrial overproduction, a structure heavily subsidized during the mid-to-late 20th century to prioritize volume over economic resilience. This systemic bias toward macro-scale operations incentivized hyper-aquisition, directly leading to the projected death or retirement of farmers overseeing 300 million acres of land. Because land is increasingly treated as a low-risk financial as