Americans have gotton farther and farther removed from the reality of where food comes from. The number one response of elementary school children, when asked where their food comes from, is "the grocery store." Tragically, adults aren't much better.
As we eat less and less fresh, raw food, the problem gets worse. More and more, restaurant meals out, or brought home for dinner, or buying pre-cooked meals at the grocery store, or making dinner from a box by adding water or popping a pouch in the microwave--takes the place of dealing with actual food in its basic state.
The reality is that fewer and fewer farmers and ranchers produce more and more food every year. As American agriculture has gotton increasingly efficient and productive, less acreage and fewer people are needed to produce a food bounty so great that the U.S. is also the number one exporter of foodstuffs around the world.
A few years ago, I took some freshly arrived Soviet immigrants to the U.S. to a supermarket to get their first groceries. It was a religious experience for them. They were used to a meat ration of two chicken wings a month, to make soup out of. They had a severely limited ration of potatoes, carrots, beans and rice. When they went to the grocery store, the shelves were empty.
They were overwhelmed at seeing an American supermarket for the first time, with dozens of choices of everything, the shelves full and groaning under the weight of massive supplies. They were unconcerned about the price--where they came from, they couldn't buy such quantity and variety at any price,
Americans don't realize or appreciate what they have. As urbanization takes more and more productive farm land out of agriculture, as more and more water is diverted from agriculture to homes and lawns--we could become like the rest of the world.
It behooves you to take a farmer out to lunch, and say thanks.
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