Assignment

Choose a non-governmental actor or interest group involved in the process of buying, selling, distributing or regulating either food or water. The actor or player can be an individual, an organization, or a company. It may be local, domestic or international.

In a minimum of 6, complete pages, (double-spaced, 1-inch margins, font of 12), write a profile of this actor with the following elements:

Outline:

- Introduction

- How is this actor connected with the topic of sustainability in food and water? Why is this actor important? How does understanding this actor help us understand the social, economic, cultural or political challenges to sustainability?

- Description

- description of actor and analysis of strategy and tactics

- actor's specific goals or priorities

- strategy, tactics used by the actor to achieve the goals

- obstacles in the way of achieving the goals

- resources: what tools or assets does the actor use to get to its goals

- opponents and allies: who stands in the way or who helps the actor

- each of these categories should have examples or illustrations

Analysis

- how does your chosen actor reflect what we have read about so far in class?

- refer to specific class readings

- your own reaction or conclusion to what you have read

- can you work with this group? How can you help it?

- do you oppose this group? Why? What is that group's main weakness? What are your goals and how does this group affect your goals? How can you interact with this group to advance your own goals?

Sources (aim for one source per written page):

- main textbook or other class readings

- organization website (this counts as just one source, regardless of the number of different web-pages from the same company or office)

- newspaper articles

- commentary from other organizations or from opposing groups

BEWARE!: The paper should not rely solely on the organization's website. This is a critical analysis of a group, so be sure to include perspectives and reactions from many sources.

This should be a research paper, with at least six pages of written content.

Also, a research paper will identify its sources of information in appropriate ways: footnotes, endnotes, or in-text references, etc.