And Meals to Go Before We Sleep

[nosmokes]

This is the final installment of a series Tom Philpott has been doing on American Agriculture for Grist. While much of it has been sobering and somber, there have been brightspots and signs of hope, like todays article about Iowa and a growing movement of small scale family farmers going organic and developing local markets. Another reason Assholian Democrats like Peterson and Lincoln opposing changes in the Farm Bill to help organic producers and keep supporting CAFOs just piss me right the fuck off.

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original-grist

And Meals to Go Before We Sleep

As food series ends, the story is just beginning
By Tom Philpott
19 Oct 2007

During my trip to the Midwest this summer, I saw many unsettling sights: vast monocropped landscapes lashed regularly with chemicals, insidious low-slung buildings that imprison thousands of animals and concentrate their waste.

Yet I returned oddly invigorated, buzzing about Iowa's promise as a sustainable-ag mecca. Amid the cornfields and the CAFOs, I saw thriving homestead farms where people are raising organic vegetables alongside pastured, happy hogs. I saw bustling farmers' markets and met chefs whose buy-local fixations might make them the toast of Berkeley or Santa Cruz.

I came back with a mantra: Iowa today is California circa 1972. One friend shot back a stern response: "minus the thousand miles of oceanfront."

Oh, right: the beach and all of that. Next I'll hear nitpicking about how Iowa doesn't have California's eternal-spring weather. Still, consider the similarities. Both states have rich soil and near-ideal growing conditions for a variety of crops -- a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, watermelons, and other delights, flourished in Iowa just a couple of generations ago. Corn and soy have Iowa's land in virtual lockdown now, but that's a recent phenomenon. The state's transformation from cornucopia to corn-topia was driven by decisions made in corporate offices and Washington back rooms, not by farmers responding to conditions in the field.
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complete article and links to the complete series here