Pink Slime: It's What's for Breakfast

We, as a nation, are utterly detached from any of the goods we consume. We don't know how, where, or how long it takes to make anything; we just want it cheap and fast.** This is clearly shown in the way our food is produced and sold. 

To meet the supply and demand of the free market, a few minor miracles were achieved. Certain, special monoculture crops were piled with pesticides and fertilizers to do the work of feeding us and our livestock (sometimes much to their digestive systems dismay, if I remember correctly), to make our plastic and biofuels, create delicious syrups that mysteriously appear in most every food item, and generally operate in an intricate system of commerce, lobbyists, and subsidies that I barely understand. Our livestock became crammed into incredibly small spaces, pumped full of food and hormones to reach an early maturity, forced to wallow in their own "poop lagoons", given antibiotics to combat the effects of said stool pools, and turned into so many various incarnations of meat and quasi-meat (pink slime, anyone?) to produce billions of pounds of meat, milk, and cheese (so much cheese it's stored in caves) annually. But by the time the final product reaches the grocery store shelf or dining establishment's table, there is no indication of what former process it went through to be served in its immaculate packaging. Truly, a miracle of industrialization.

But these various practices are a suck on resources such as water and much of what is harvested is mismanaged (due to the aforementioned intricate system of commerce, lobbyists, and subsidies). Given that our population will not reduce any time soon, the percentage of farmers is the lowest in history, and increasing amounts of crops are lost to extreme weather events each year, it is past time for a restructuring of our industrial food complex. 

Once again, I am torn: do we.. seize the means of production in an attempt at more equitable distribution? Do we implement post-industrial means to tweak the industrial systems (i.e. farmer drones and soylent  shakes as primary food sources a la Silicon Valley)? Or do we forego it all and plant community gardens on every block? 

**Granted, with due cause. Many Americans are forced to work multiple jobs at a wage that has been stagnant for decades. This doesn't necessarily leave a lot of time for hunting and gathering.