Where food comes from

I was browsing the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture website (part of the Iowa State University Extension program) and found a nifty little tool for Americans who wonder about where their produce originates. It gives the amount of a product that was shipped into or within the US in 2007.

I looked up a bunch of fruits and veggies I eat a lot of and the trend pointed toward California and Mexico with a little splash of Florida.

Sad.

I live in the middle of the most fruitful soil on the planet and we're building suburbs on it instead of eating it - though not so much recently with the housing market in the toilet.

(BTW. I'm so amused at the name "Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture" since Aldo Leopold was chiefly concerned with wilderness preservation - of which Iowa has NONE, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with agriculture.)

I'm going to try to get my seed order to Burpee completed over the weekend - then I'll post some more detailed plans!