Food Supply

This appeared in the July 15, 2021 edition of The Fish Wrap.

Nearly 75% of California is in ‘extreme drought’ meaning the land does not have adequate water to sustain agriculture and wildlife. Farms are at 30% capacity, getting plowed under or left unseeded. Dairies and meat producers are also affected as animals are sent to slaughter early because of lack of water. Small farms can’t survive a year this bad, and they will get bought up by large farm corporations that will end up controlling most of the water.

Over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of fruits and nuts come from California. All told, the California agriculture industry supplies 25% of the nation’s food, including ours! The drought conditions may improve, but it will take years to rebuild the infrastructure lost this year. If conditions don’t improve, the country needs to build infrastructure in places that can still support agriculture. Either way, the supply chain is shifting and cascading effects of this summer will be felt for years, most acutely with escalating prices for food.

With some of the richest soil in the world, Illinois should be well-equipped to feed ourselves and much of the nation. But Illinois grows only 4% of the food we consume, with 96% being imported from outside the state. Only 1% of the corn we grow is consumed directly as food, with most of it going to ethanol or livestock feed. We can’t live on High Fructose Corn Syrup!

The right time to build local food infrastructure is before the trucks stop coming. We used to have it, but we sacrificed it for convenience and low cost. This drought crisis is an opportunity to shift infrastructure to Illinois, instead of letting Mexico and South America fill the market void. You can help build local food infrastructure by buying food from local farmers today!