The Outsourcing of America’s Food

When I was a child, my parents used to pile me and my siblings into my dad’s Oldsmobile Bravada every Sunday night and drive us to my grandparents’ house, just outside of town. In my home state of Iowa, the food economy is painted into the background, and we passed by a number of farms on the way. But at that time, you didn’t just see corn. We drove by a series of apple orchards and fields full of cows out to pasture.

Iowa once had a diversified farm economy. A 1935 guide commissioned by the Federal Writers’ Project described the variety of produce grown within the state, and the regional specialties that flourished. The area around Davenport, near the border with Illinois, was known for its onions, while Northern Iowa specialized in sugar beets. Grapes grew out west near Council Bluffs and Omaha. Peaches were concentrated in the south along the Missouri border. Muscatine, in the southeastern corner of the state, was famous for its melons.

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