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Section A: Fruits and Vegetables in the Food System
Projected
Outcomes
- Students will think about the role of horticulture
crops in their lives.
- Students will know how fruits and vegetables
fit into Iowa and Wisconsin’s agriculture
and their food systems.
- Students will begin to understand how horticulture
crops fit into the world food system and global
economy
Background
/ Lessons
What
role do fruits and vegetables play in our diets?
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
“Five a day for better health.”
Folk wisdom and modern nutritional research agree:
eating lots of fruit and vegetables is good for
your health. However, many Americans eat fewer
vegetables and fruits than recommended, particularly
fewer dark green and orange vegetables.
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Activity
1: What role do fruits and vegetables play in
your diet?
Where
are these crops grown and how do they get to us?
Unlike animal products and grains, most fruits
and vegetables do not require much processing
before people can eat them. On the other hand,
insects, bacteria, and fungi find fruits and vegetables
just as delicious and easy to eat as we do. As
a result, vegetables and fruits usually need careful
storage and handling to prevent spoilage. Before
the widespread availability of refrigeration and
fast transportation, most fruits and vegetables
people ate were grown locally. They were eaten
fresh in season and canned, pickled, or dried
in winter and early spring. Today most fruits
and vegetables in the US travel a long way and
undergo a considerable amount of handling and
processing before they get eaten.
Less than 0.05% of Iowa’s cropland is in
commercial vegetable production. About 2.3% of
Wisconsin’s cropland is in vegetables. In
Wisconsin, the amount of land in vegetable production
has declined by more than 25% over the past 30
years, from 337,959 acres in 1974 to 252,692 acres
in 2002. Both Wisconsin and Iowa also continue
to lose vegetable processing facilities. As a
result, most of the fresh and processed fruits
and vegetables consumed in Iowa and Wisconsin
are imported, either from other states or from
other countries.
Activity
2: What grows here? What sells here?
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Land in fresh market vegetable production,
2002 Agricultural Census
|
Iowa |
Wisconsin |
| Acres
of veg. |
9,435 |
252,6931 |
| Acres
of corn |
11,761,392 |
2,862,031 |
| Total
cropland |
27,153,291 |
10,728,655 |
| %
in vegetables |
0.03% |
2.3% |
|
Data From USDA
NASS 2002 Census of Agriculture Volume 1,State
Level |
Value of vegetable and fruit production, 2002
Agricultural Census
|
Iowa |
Wisconsin |
California
|
| Total
value of vegetables |
$19,491,000 |
$
341,615,000 |
$
4,785,101,000 |
| State
ranking in veg. production |
38 of 50 |
8
of 50 |
1
of 50 |
| Total
value of fruit |
$ 4,496,000 |
$
107,972,000 |
$
8,720,660,000 |
| State
ranking in fruit production |
41 of 50 |
12
of 50 |
1
of 50 |
|
Data From USDA
NASS 2002 Census of Agriculture, State and
County Profiles |
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In the US California alone accounts for about
half of fresh market vegetable production, both
in terms of quantity and value. Five states (California,
Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and Texas) produce
more than 80% of fresh market vegetables produced
in the US. We also import fruits and vegetables
from all over the world.
From USDA
Agricultural Research Service Vegetables 2004
Summary, accessed May 2005
With modern refrigeration and transportation,
most fruit now eaten in Iowa and Wisconsin is
imported from a few states and from other countries.
See “How far do your fruit and vegetables travel?”States such as California and Florida have climates
that allow them to grow tropical fruits such as
oranges and to harvest temperate fruits such as
strawberries over a greatly extended season.
However, climate alone does not account for the
low level of fruit production in Wisconsin and
Iowa. Take the example of apples. Michigan and
New York, with growing conditions similar to Wisconsin
and Iowa, have strong apple production sectors.
And Iowa was once a national leader in growing
apples. In 1911 Iowa produced 9.5 million bushels
of apples, but by 1997 apple production in Iowa
had dropped to 307,000 bushels, less than 5% of
its peak production. See Comparing
Apples to Apples, published by the LeopoldCenter
for Sustainable Agriculture. Following World War II, the trend in US agriculture was towards regional specialization in a few key crops. Iowa focused on corn, soybean, and hog production, and Wisconsin emphasized dairy and vegetables for processing. Meanwhile, the infrastructure for processing and distributing other crops, including fruits, declined.
Muscatine Melon: A Case Study of a Place-based Food in Iowa by Sue Futrell and Craig Chase provides another example of the decline of horticultural production in Iowa.
Activity 3: Menus and
Maps
Like vegetables and fruits, cut flowers and
other ornamental plants were once produced near
the markets where customers bought and enjoyed
them. With today’s transportation and storage
technologies, production has shifted to areas
with better year-round growing conditions and
lower labor costs. California and Florida alone
accounted for nearly 38% of wholesale floral production
in the US in 2000. Meanwhile, 58% of the wholesale
value of fresh (or cut) flowers sold in the US
was imported, mainly from Latin America. In 1970,
less than 1% of the carnations sold in the US
were imported from Colombia; by 2000 roughly 95%
of the carnations bought in this country were
imported from Colombia. Similar trends exist for
chrysanthemums and roses, and Latin American growers
are beginning to compete in production of specialty
flowers as well. To stay in business, many American
growers have shifted to producing pot plants,
bedding plants, and cut greens. Statistics taken
from Paul V. Nelson, 2003, Greenhouse Operation
& Management, New Jersey: Prentic Hall.
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What
are the consequences of the way we get fruits
and vegetables?
Our global food system is great for consumers
in many ways. Take a trip to the grocery store
in January. The temperature outside may be freezing,
but the produce aisle is overflowing with bounty,
from apples and bananas through broccoli, lettuce,
and oranges to strawberries, tomatoes, and zucchini.
Each item may have traveled thousands of miles,
but they look fresh and unblemished, and they
cost very little.
But the global food system is not perfect. Take
a trip to the same grocery store in August. The
offerings in the produce department are eerily
similar to those in January. Most of the produce
still comes from hundreds or thousands of miles
away, with a world of waxing, packaging, and trucking
to get it to the refrigerated coolers under the
carefully calibrated lights.
If your town is lucky enough to have a good local
farmers’ market, stop by there early in
the day and compare what you find. No oranges
or bananas, but a cornucopia of tomatoes, from
clusters of deep red tiny cherry tomatoes to yellow
pear-shaped, green striped, scarlet beefsteaks,
and pale pink Brandywines weighing a pound or
more each. Each of these varieties has a distinct
flavor and texture unmatched by the well-traveled
grocery store tomato.
Modern technology is great at preserving and
transporting produce, but it has its limits. It can only work with varieties that are durable, and many varieties with excellent flavor and nutrition are rejected because they store and ship poorly. Also, some items such as bananas and tomatoes must be picked and packed green, before flavor and nutritional quality reach their peak.
Imported fruits and vegetables are supposed to
meet US standards for pesticide residues, but
non-food items such as flowers are not inspected
for residues. Conditions for farm workers in other
countries tend to be even worse than in the US,
with long hours, exposure to harmful chemicals,
poor pay, and minimal or non-existent benefits.
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Conclusion
Sustainable farmers and their customers are rediscovering
the importance of local markets and food systems
that can provide profits to growers, and freshness,
variety, and quality, as well as social and environmental
benefits, to consumers.
However, sustainable food systems still face
some major challenges, including the need to develop
better techniques and technologies for handling
and storage of fruits and vegetables, and appropriate
infrastructures for local and sustainable foods.
The case studies in Section B provide some examples
of the successes and challenges of sustainable
horticulture.
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