Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Over the Garden Fence
According to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, most food in America
is shipped 1,500 to 2,000 miles before reaching the end user—you.
With a single provider sending produce or meat to millions of people, the risks are compounded
when something goes wrong. For example, in a highly publicized case in 2011, a cantaloupe recall
occurred due to
Listeria
contamination. When a single farm experienced a
Listeria
contamination,
the outbreak spread across a minimum of 24 confirmed states. More than 140 people were known
to have been infected, although it's possible that not all cases were diagnosed or properly reported.
The large-scale and widespread nature of our food supply makes it more tenuous than most people
realize. A war breaking out in a country thousands of miles away, or a drought on the other side of
the country, can severely disrupt our commercial food supply. While most Americans went without
juicy and delicious melons during the cantaloupe recall, my family was enjoying the last of our
cantaloupe and watermelon crop worry free. And while cantaloupe is hardly a must-have food, the
potential problem is present in most of our food products in the United States.
From an economic perspective, the United States is now more dependent than ever on foreign
imports for our food. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we have experienced an
increase of imported fruits, vegetables, and grains of more than 100 percent in the past 20 years
alone. And if shipping costs continue to rise, and global drought and weather upheavals continue
to decrease food production, we will see the cost—and precariousness—of these imports rise
dramatically.
In fact, CNN Money (money.cnn.com) ran a report from World Bank in April 2011 that the price
of food had risen more than 30 percent overall in just a single year. A record number of people
across the globe fell into the poverty level because of this food pricing increase. For most people,
when they are entirely dependent on what's available on the grocery store shelf, these numbers can
be frightening.
For others who, like myself, have chosen to produce as much as possible in their own backyard,
these numbers are less frightening. I live on a corner lot in a rural Oklahoma town. My front yard
looks like an average suburban home, and my generous corner-lot backyard brings the full size of
my home to just under a quarter acre. But in that quarter acre we can produce around 40 percent
of our food needs and still leave room for the kids to run and play.
What would the difference be if everyone produced even a small garden and kept a backyard
flock of chickens for eggs? Well, we ran that experiment once in our nation's history. In the
1940s, spurred by Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden at the White House, more than 20 million
American homes had home gardens. These efforts produced as much as 40 percent of the produce
