Where does your food come from?

I was reading my monthly National Geographic and found that they are starting a new eight month long exposition on food, and how we, as a planet, plan on feeding what will be 9 billion people in 2050.This sounded really far in the future until basic math reminded me that it is only 35 years away. What really snatched my attention though is when the article was talking about where our crops go. Even though we have a ton of farm land in the United States hardly any of those crops go to the supermarket. If the information in this article is correct, not that I have any reason to think otherwise, then our crops go to feeding livestock and/or biofuels. The United States is the world's largest producer, with China right behind, of corn which mainly goes to feeding livestock, the reason being is that we are a meat devouring society. India had the highest percentage for crops grown to be consumed by humans this being because Indians eat more rice and vegetables than the western world.

Purple is crops for fuel or livestock feed and green

represents human consumption.           Source: National Geographic

 So where do we get our food? The grocery store gets their produce from a wholesaler who gets it from a manufacturer who gets the food from a broker who gets the crop from a farmer. That's a long way for some apples. Also, technically "local" farms can be as far as 400 miles away from their market and only twelve states account for half of all farmers markets in the U.S, California being number one. If you look at any of the fruit in the grocery store it is probably from a South American country and vegetables are probably from Mexico. 

Honestly pasture or grass fed beef and pork is immensely healthier not only for the animals but for us too. If we switched from producing a monocrop of corn for feed to raising better livestock and a greater variety of produce, along with a more grain, fruit, and vegetable based diet, maybe our ecological footprint due to agriculture, which is the largest consumer of water and producer waste, would be reduced as well as our waistline.