In my household the end of summer means putting up copious amounts of spaghetti sauce, freezing green beans and sweet corn, and enjoying all of the fresh veggies we can.
Fortunately, we live in a community where we have access to local producers who sell their fresh produce, eggs, and meat at the Macomb Farmers' Market, the Macomb Food Coop or directly to customers through weekly baskets of produce, like those from Wild Parsnip Farms.
And let’s not forget the Giving Gardens, whose six community gardens have produce available for anyone to harvest.
I have always been mindful of where my food comes from and try really hard to eat seasonally and locally. Of course, like everyone else, I slip up and must admit I have an uncanny love of Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. I grew up on a farm in southern Ohio and made the connection between how people produce food and what we actually eat a long time ago. Until the farm-crisis of the 1980’s my dad had beef cattle and a few pigs. He also grew corn, soybeans, winter wheat and alfalfa for hay. We had a freezer full of beef and frozen sweetcorn. At Thanksgiving we all relished in sharing some of my Grandma Ulrey’s amazing homemade tomato juice from her garden. All of our neighbors were farmers whose farms were similarly diverse.
The farm crisis of the 1980s drastically changed the nature of farming. But it didn’t happen overnight. The seeds of the 1980s crisis were sown decades earlier. Post WWII farmers witnessed revolutionary advances in agricultural technology. There was new motorized machinery, seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. All of which resulted in greater efficiency and productivity. But it was expensive and many farmers found themselves financially over extended and unable to continue farming.
The Farm Crisis accelerated a long-established trend of farmers leaving the land and farms being consolidated. In 1935 the number of farms in the U.S. reached an all-time high of 6.8 million. By 1990 there were only 2.1 million farms. In 2023 that number dropped to 1.89 million.
How we produce our food matters, perhaps more now than ever. Studies have found about a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from growing food. Land clearing is the biggest single reason, because it releases carbon dioxide stored in the soil and trees. NPR says other greenhouse emissions come from nitrogen fertilizer and — famously — the burps of cattle and sheep, which contain methane, a greenhouse pollutant even more powerful than carbon dioxide.
The meat in those tasty cheeseburgers that come from fast food restaurants don’t come from farmers nearby. A story from Trellis says despite McDonald’s 2014 declaration that it would begin to sustainably source its ingredients for their meals, in 2024 the goals have been redefined. McDonald’s doesn’t buy beef directly from cattle ranches, feedlots or slaughterhouses. Rather, it purchases “individually quick-frozen” patties from dozens of processors worldwide. This means that your hamburger could contain beef from as far away as New Zealand or Australia.
According to the state climatologist of Illinois, the changes observed in Illinois' climate since the early 20th century are primarily driven by human activities. While that Filet-O-Fish box has a little blue label that tells me the fish I’m about to eat is certified as environmentally sustainable, what it doesn’t tell me is that Indigenous communities in Western Alaska are endangered, in part because of the Seattle-based trawlers that harvest the fish for my favorite sandwich.
The trawlers are trying to catch pollock, which is the main component of the Marine Stewardship Council-approved Filet-O-Fish. However, they also tend to scoop up halibut. Meanwhile, as Slate notes, the smaller boats that actually catch halibut and bring it to market are going out of business. My daily decisions about what I eat really do have an impact on people far away whom I will never meet and the planet itself.
Am I going to give up my guilty pleasure completely? Probably not, but I will try and eat it less often than I would like to.
One person can make a difference with being mindful of how what we eat is connected to climate change. In the words of author Michael Pollen “Eat local, healthy food that your great-grandmother would have recognized. Avoid anything processed. Buy from your local farmer's market.”
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad is a Professor of Anthropology at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on collaborative action for sustainability.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the university or Tri States Public Radio.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.