Food Production: Part 1

I have recently decided to attend a college next year in the heart of America's farmland, or in other words, the Midwest. Many deem the region boring, as just a place filled with cornfield after cornfield. However, I see the region as an extremely interesting place, where food begins as humble plants before it is transformed into cereals and sugars and breads. This got me thinking about our food production: how it's planted, how it's grown, and how it's harvested.

Modern food production is much different than it was in the early farming days. We now can mass produce all products and make them available to almost anyone who wants the products, and there are many issues with this type of production. In this post, however, I will just focus on the issue of the changes in food production methods.

When one thinks of a Midwestern farm, they think of a quintessential farm life: a red barn, a windmill, some cows mingling around. This may have been the image of past farmers, I'm not sure, but it certainly is not the image of farmers today. Today, most modern farmers work to produce cash crops for mass distribution, while before this shift, farmers grew just enough for themselves and to make a profit locally. And this shift has sparked many other shifts, including technological advances, environmental degradation, and urbanization.

In short, changes in food production in farms has fueled much more, greater change, change that we, as Americans, could not imagine life without.

Keep reading for the next post further investigating food production.

Peace out, and rock on.