EDITOR’S NOTE: Miss Clarendon 2015 Ariana Ruiz presented the following comments to the Manning Rotary Club during its regular weekly meeting held June 3 at Manning Restaurant. Ruiz checks in this weekend in Columbia for the Miss South Carolina Pageant. The comments explain her commitment to her platform, which is minimizing urban sprawl.
More often than not, we go about our everyday lives, as any normal person would.
But do we ever really sit back and think about where the items we buy as consumers actually come from?
From the food we eat to the clothes on our backs, the majority of these items come from items grown in the field. The agricultural industry is No. 1 in the world. If you really sit back and thing about it, would you actually name a single thing that does not start off with soil?
My purpose here today is to stress the importance of agricultural awareness and an epidemic known as “urban sprawl.”
Living in a small, rurual community, I admit that when we get a new restaurant or business, it is very exciting. The thought of expanding our community brings joy to many people. Businesses bring in more people, jobs and opportunities. But the amount and how we expand is what should be carefully monitored.
Urban sprawl is the uncontrolled expansion of urban areas. We need to be aware of companies that go in and knock out precious farmland and our valuable forests.
Right now, our country is actually buying lumber form other countries because we are not doing our part as cultivators of the land to re-grow every tree we chop down.
Solving this issue really starts out with awareness. If we could educate our youth, then gradually urban sprawl will reduce. I would just like to take this moment to thank you for your time in understanding the importance of minimizing urban sprawl.
Ariana Ruiz is a graduate of the Manning High School Class of 2015. After Miss South Carolina, she will attend Central Carolina Technical College for one year before transferring to Clemson University to study agricultural education.
