In less than 100 years, the United States has moved from an agricultural to an industrial to an information economy. Not only have those changes had a serious impact how we grow, produce, and distribute food, they have also changed consumers’ relationship to food. Today’s high-powered and complex transportation systems help satisfy our appetite for exotic foods, which can now be delivered to local supermarkets quickly and cheaply. Rising populations fuel the need for additional housing developments, schools, shopping centers, and business parks, paving over fertile farmland and forever changing local landscapes and access to fresh food. And the demands of the workplace find consumers in need of quick and easy meal plans, forcing us to accept a high concentration of processed, virtually nutrition-free foods in our diets.

While consumers become more and more disconnected from the sources of their food, science, technology, and agriculture have merged to create a monolithic agribusiness industry whose primary mission is to produce the highest yields of uniform food products at the lowest possible prices. Unfortunately, the benefits that agribusinesses purport to offer--more and better-looking food at the cheapest possible prices--does not paint an accurate picture of the effect the industry is having on our landscapes, our communities, and our lives.

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