I live in Ohio, the easternmost part of the Midwest. Urban sprawl and logistics hubs (Amazon distribution and other trucking) is eating up farmland around the cities, pushing up the price of land while tax abatements erode the public coffers. A lot of the farming, especially in the Northwestern part of Ohio, is locked into the corn-/soybean-CAFO economy. There are some promising urban and para-urban ag initiatives, but they’re a game for young folks, which leaves the sustainability an open question. Farmers are aging out, and the generation gap will require a huge bridge, both economic and cultural. We do still have an Amish population that continues to farm, at least something of a counterweight to the industrial model. For more details, check in with the (Wendell) Berry Center in Kentucky— not Midwest, exactly, but a great resource.
I used to live in the Midwest. This book helped me too understand more about the Midwest and modern farming: "Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry".
Sure, that'd be one way to go - most likely by default, alas. There's a lot of overproduction driven by domestic and international markets in that region. It would help if that could be cut. Although feeding existing populations remains a concern of mine.
I live in Ohio, the easternmost part of the Midwest. Urban sprawl and logistics hubs (Amazon distribution and other trucking) is eating up farmland around the cities, pushing up the price of land while tax abatements erode the public coffers. A lot of the farming, especially in the Northwestern part of Ohio, is locked into the corn-/soybean-CAFO economy. There are some promising urban and para-urban ag initiatives, but they’re a game for young folks, which leaves the sustainability an open question. Farmers are aging out, and the generation gap will require a huge bridge, both economic and cultural. We do still have an Amish population that continues to farm, at least something of a counterweight to the industrial model. For more details, check in with the (Wendell) Berry Center in Kentucky— not Midwest, exactly, but a great resource.
I used to live in the Midwest. This book helped me too understand more about the Midwest and modern farming: "Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry".
"I’m also still interested in agrarian futures in the US Midwest. That’s one helluva lot of farmland you’ve got there."
Which used to be wildly diverse prairie sustaining many species before it was destroyed for farming. I'd rather bring the prairies back, myself.
Sure, that'd be one way to go - most likely by default, alas. There's a lot of overproduction driven by domestic and international markets in that region. It would help if that could be cut. Although feeding existing populations remains a concern of mine.