Let’s say you live in the Midwest and it’s the dead of winter. You’re in the grocery store enjoying your usual shopping experience. You pick up a few avocados and place them in your cart. You make it home, split the avocado in half for prep to make some home-made guacamole, never really giving it a second thought: how is this possible?

Avocados aren’t native to the Midwest. 90% of U.S. avocados are grown in California. Interestingly though, Californian avocados represent only a small fraction of avocados consumed in the U.S.— 90% of Avocados consumed in the U.S. are actually imported from Mexico.¹

Back in 2019, for the first time in decades, the U.S. imported more food for consumption than it exported.²

But it isn’t just the magic of shipping that gets foreign foods on your plate.

Illinois, where I live, is America’s #2 producer of soybeans. Neither corn nor soybeans are regular staples in the average American’s shopping basket. So, the question becomes, why do we grow so much and where does it go?

One big answer: trade.

Part of what makes a healthy economy is trade. When it comes to soybeans, China is America’s #1 customer. China was responsible for over half of soybean sales in 2024.

However, following a trade war and the White House tariff engagement, China has backed out from buying soybeans for the U.S. almost entirely.

The U.S. has developed quite the food system. Virtually every American can go to their local grocery store and enjoy foods that can’t be grown regionally.

The average American happily enjoys the luxury of eating whatever food they want, at whatever time of year they want.

(Except watermelons. We go crazy over watermelons here during Chicago summers. Big ole’ trucks from Georgia drive and sell the scrumptious fruits right off the truck the old-school way. It’s food commerce in it’s most beautiful forms. Or maybe I just love watermelon, I don’t know.)

When America’s #1 buyer of soybeans stops buying soybeans from America, prices of domestic soybeans decrease. The soybean farmer is now faced with a harsh reality of uncertainty.

Soybean farmers make their living on selling soybeans. A “china-less” market is not nearly as lucrative. The conventional U.S. farmer is now dealing with uncertain planning and domestic supply excess leading to lower costs of soybeans.

The entire soybean farming sector, that brought in $46 billion ³in 2024, is barreling down the express lane to a massive government bailout worth multiples of billions.

That’s being covered by your taxpayer money.

Remember when the cost of eggs shot up to unprecedented prices?

Well, actually, I don’t know about your grocery store, but the cost of eggs at mine have still not returned to normal. I’m unsure if they ever will.

Bird flu was to blame for the market-wide swelling of egg prices. But bird flu didn’t cause the increase in price, conventional farming did.

Bird flu isn’t new, it’s been around for centuries. And it circles back around every year. When a bird of a conventionally raised flock catches bird flu, farmers have to cull (“kill”) the entire flock.

But no one ever asked, what happens when a pasture-raised flock catches bird flu?

Joel Salatin, one of America’s most popular pasture-raising farmers, addresses the bird flu concern masterfully…

In short, give the birds some fresh air and grass instead of demoting them to sterile environments and you won’t be dealing with weakened immune systems subject to contracting bird flu.

Egg prices hiked because of supply and demand, sure, but the real culprit behind the increase was found in the way the chickens were raised.

The issue is that conventionally raising farmers are incentivized to do so because they are wholly covered by the government.

Feed is consistently the greatest cost of raising animals. Imagine having to spend next-to-nothing on feed because your government pays for it for you.

Okay, maybe that fact isn’t spurring up a good ‘ole rural hallelujah in you— imagine this instead: the government pays for your gas. Every time you go to fill up at the pump, Uncle Sam swipes his card for you.

You’ll likely be less incentivized to ever switch to electric.

I’ll take it a step further: when your car breaks down, the government covers the cost of repairs. You’re entire ride is essentially backed by the government— as long as you keep driving a gas car. I don’t know about you, but with that deal, I wouldn’t ever switch to electric.

The natural way of commerce is direct-to-consumer. It’s how we observe virtually all transactions in our day to day. You buy shoes form Nike: direct-to-consumer. You buy flowers for your wife, you purchase from the flower lady: direct-to-consumer.

The sustainability and growth of a market that is truly direct-to-consumer is totally dependent on the consumer. That is, in order for a market to flourish, the consumer has to buy.

So, the inherent vulnerability with conventional farming is that it is not direct-to-consumer. At least, in a traditional sense. Due to government interference, the conventional system will never observe it’s actual worth.

You and your neighbor wouldn’t spend much money on the conventional system if its practices were widely known because they entail GMO feeding and improper raising conditions for animals. Each dollar spent on this industry is a vote for what we don’t want at the end of our forks.

And the industry knows that.

But because the government pays the costs of feed for these conventional farmers, they don’t have to face the reality of not having the people’s dollar. The threat of destruction from producing an unworthy product for the market is non-existent.

Conventional corn and soy farmers are utterly dependent on the government. Government funding and government decisions.

Pasture-raising farmers garner no substantial financial support from the government. This is actually a great thing.

This allows for a healthy and natural direct-to-consumer relationship to flourish.

If the pasture-raising farmer doesn’t make what the people want, they’ll go bankrupt in a heartbeat. So, since the pasture-raising farmer has to actually serve who purchases their goods, they not only make what folks want, but they are accountable to those folks.

When buyers are able to hold sellers accountable, we observe a market of higher quality, because that’s what buyers value. Why do we observe food industry callbacks when salmonella is found in the chicken, but the company in question makes zero changes to prevent it from happening again? The company feels zero accountability pressures from the end consumer.

A “people-backed” market is the most valuable one. When people dictate the value of something they’re consuming, we observe greater sustainability.

As we’re observing with the conventional sector, when the government fluctuates, the entire industry is threatened by bankruptcy.

When you’re system is backed-by-government, you’re now subjected to having to withstand the volatility of administrations shifting, the volatility of foreign market decisions, and the innate volatility of institutional dependency.

Dependency in itself isn’t a problem. The matter depends on whom is dependent on who.

Institutional dependency is inherently fragile.

The very people we seek to serve are those that are typically heavily dependent on government assistance.

We’ve seen the government put a clamp on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding. By modifying it’s requirements, congress expects SNAP funding to decrease by $186 billion⁴.

At the heart of what we’d like to do with Feed The Land is relay truth to the youth. As they have the most malleable minds and are the least “trained” on government dependency— they have a whole future to learn what it means to not depend on the government for food. If we can plant seeds within the youth, then we can observe them shift the reality of food insecurity over time. It’s a generational effort, one that will continue long after I’m gone.

I recognize institutional dependency is finicky. So, I’m constantly asking: what does it look like to not only give to those in need, but to train an entire people group in a way that shifts the upcoming generations for the better?

We can give as many chickens out as a given farm can supply, but if we never open the minds of those afflicted with a low-income survivalist mindset, particularly the kids, then we’ll never see real change.

With Feed The Land, your gifts don’t just prop-up a practical solution, but a psychological one. Thank you evermore. Cheers to real change.

Thank you for your generosity!