Monday, July 11, 2016

I-57

Southern Illinois is corn and soybeans. Miles and miles of them. And it occurs to me that they’re holding up the entire global economy. Not all by themselves, but having factory farms churning out acres of commodities is what frees up all the time people spend sitting in cubicles or flying to meetings or walking to class. Commodities by definition are generic, like money. They’re not good or bad; they’re units of exchange. So whatever you choose to eat, at the end of the food chain you’re being nourished by bushels of GMO corn, washed down with barrels of petroleum.

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