It is National Agriculture Week (this year, March 18-22). The recent U.S. Census of Agriculture data suggests agriculture is not at the forefront of most people’s thoughts these days.

Yet, maybe, the trouble is one of connecting the dots.

Food is personal. What we eat; how, when, even why we eat is personal. Yet, food originates in agriculture. The line between the agriculture dot and the food dot is sometimes a broken one. It is a line we need to try to fill in.

There is some debate about the most consumed food in the United States. Some claim it is a hamburger, others point to mashed potatoes, still others tout pizza, but no matter which food graces plates most often in the U.S., all their component parts are sourced from farms and ranches.

A hamburger

I don’t want to get fancy here. Let’s talk about a juicy beef burger on a sesame seed bun with the usual accompaniments of lettuce, pickles, tomato, onion, ketchup, and mustard. (I like a cheeseburger as much as the next person but that is a whole different level of discussion for a different day. To farm-source the ingredients for a standard burger, you’ll need beef from a ranch, wheat from a grain farm, lettuce, cucumbers, tomato, onion, and mustard seed all from vegetable producers. 

Mashed potatoes

I like a starchy potato for my mashed potatoes. It’s not everyone’s thing but I grew up helping to raise russets and that’s what we mashed with heaps of butter, chicken stock, and seasonings. For a perfect pile of them at the holidays or any old time, you need a spud grower and a dairy producer at least. If you make mashed potatoes the way I do, you’ll also need a poultry raiser for your chicken stock.

Pizza

Homemade, frozen, takeout, or delivery, almost everyone likes a slice of pizza from time to time. The components separately aren’t too bad but put them together and it is the food equivalent of a warm hug. A typical pepperoni pie requires a wheat farmer, a dairy producer, a vegetable grower, and a pig raiser.

All three of these are an over-simplification of the structure of the food system, but brevity is the soul of a blog. When connecting the dots between farms and food, the keys really boil down to just one thing: knowing that food comes from somewhere. Nothing appears on a plate fully formed.

When we see a plate of something, it is components that create a whole, not unlike a painting or a house. We don’t take for granted that a painting requires a great deal of time, talent, and effort to become a work of art. Similarly, we don’t overlook the many hands and trades required to build a house. Yet, we sometimes forget the many steps between field and food.

As National Agriculture Week wraps up, I hope you take a moment not to “thank a farmer” or “hug a farmer” but to connect the dots between the farm and the food. Just remember your meal did not appear as if by magic on your plate, it was created by a series of farms and ranches, working in concert to make a tasty bite a food. Let’s all do our part to make sure the line between the farm dot and the food dot is a complete one so the picture is easily seen for every meal moving forward.