Comparing Sustainability

Abbie Jo Holig is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in dairy science and Spanish. She is from Mauston, Wisconsin. Abbie compared the sustainability of different dairy systems in Mexico.

When comparing sustainability among different companies and groups in Mexico, there are three distinct categories for sustainability. Economic sustainability is having the means of income and ability to progress and keep up in an advancing world. For this group I chose to rank Proan as the highest because of their use of technology and the way that they chose to grow into a company that will be competitive for many years to come. The tropical dairy was intermediate because they use the market to stay informed and make valuable decision, but they are not quite as competitive as a large company such as Proan. The small holders are the least sustainable in this category because they only live off of what they have and do not compete for a place in the economy.

I found environmental sustainability to be the exact opposite as economic and I put the small holders as the highest in this group. I felt that environmental sustainability meant having the least amount of impact on surrounding nature. The small holders work very hard to keep the land as natural as possible and try not to disrupt the land. Although they had a lot of erosion problems in the past, I feel that they are making less of a dent on the depletion of natural resources and pollution. The tropical dairy is again intermediate because they tend to only use the resources that are available to them, but they have cut back some of the trees in order for them to farm and pasture cattle. Proan has the most impact on pollution due to their trucks and large buildings therefore making them the least environmentally sustainable.

After looking at social sustainability, I chose to rank these groups by the idea that future generations should have the same or greater access to social resources as the current generation. For social resources I included culture and basic human rights. Proan was again ranked the highest due to the fact that a powerful company such as themselves, would be able to have more of an influence on the government and many of the laws that are made. The tropical dairy was ranked in the middle again because they were not quite as shut away from the world as the small holders, but they had less power than Proan. The small holders worked hard in their own world and did not care much about the outside environment. They will be less likely to grab the attention of leaders in the Mexican government.




KeywordsAbbie's Portfolio Entry   Doc ID56702
OwnerAntonio A.GroupDS 473 Field Study Abroad
Created2015-09-23 22:02:21Updated2015-09-23 22:02:29
SitesDS 473 Field Study Abroad
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