Produce foods?!
Answers: should we know where all our produce come from? Would that be nessassary?
Yes we should know.
Our food supply is very important to our national security. If it is or can be tampered and suppliers are not accountable then we are putting ourselves into a unfavorable position should anything ever happen.
Another reason is political. If consumers don't know where certain products come from then we lose the ability to support or not support certain suppliers and or countries.
Nationally (as opposed to internationally) it is not quite as important to know that something came from Nebraska instead of Kansas or which farm. Where this would become important is in controlling the size of a recall. For example, if there is a lettuce recall because of e-coli contamination, the amount of food product that would be recalled would be far smaller if we knew the sources of the lettuce.
I'm not sure what purpose it would serve. With all the e. coli scares, the news media keeps us pretty much up to date. I am afraid if we all had to try to keep up with where all of our produce, or foods come from, we would become paranoid by that type of behavior before long. I suppose we could go back to the old days where we grow our own. Many people have begun to to this.
There are many farms that produce the same product. In my state corn comes from different farms. It is usually marketed as "locally grown." It would be very difficult for markets to list each different farm that they have bought their produce from.