Because industrial farming draws on the economy of scale, our food is increasingly grown in concentration in specific areas of the country. This is so common that it has shaped much of our country’s geographic identities—the western Plains are wheat country, the Midwest is the Corn Belt—but it has reached extremes. For instance, approximately ninety percent of all the fresh vegetables we consume are grown in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

This hemispheric-scale system is possible only because it uses large quantities of fossil fuels to transport food products to the consumer. It is now common practice to ship food not just around the country, but around the world so that you can have “fresh” asparagas in December and bananas year-round.  As a result, ingredients for the average North American meal travel between 2,400 and 44,00 km to reach your table and spend 7 to 14 days in transit.

Here’s a short article from 100milediet.org that summarizes the situation in the Kootenays and what follows is a US-based video with interesting facts about food and how far it travels to your home.