Cities need farms for food, and farms need cities for trade and customers. Noted urbanist Jane Jacobs recognized this. In it, she proves that farms and towns are inextricably linked. Without cities, agriculture wouldn't have developed. But that important farm-city connection is all but ignored in America nowadays.
People eat strawberries grown in other hemispheres and wonder why they have no taste.
They have no clue whether their grocery store eggs come from nearby chickens or some giant egg factory on the outskirts of Des Moines. Refrigeration and truck transportation have clouded people's eyes to the farm-market links. So it's rare for city advocates and farmers' advocates to sit together in a room and talk about helping each other. Amazingly, that happened this week in Charlotte. The results weren't what you might expect.