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Nov. 18, 2025
Illinois has some of the richest soil on earth. A third of the state is devoted to agriculture. Yet we import 95% of what we actually eat. Outside of Chicago, corn and soybeans stretch in all directions, but it’s mostly crops that feed cars and cattle, not people.
What I’d once taken for granted, I now couldn’t stop thinking about as a food and agriculture policy reporter in Illinois.
I wanted to know why. The answers aren’t in the soil. They’re in the state capitol.
While covering a proposal to reform how Illinois procures food for its public institutions, I discovered that the state spends tens of millions of public dollars annually to feed people in its prisons, veterans homes, mental health centers, and hospitals.
That money flows to massive distributors who source food from outside Illinois — often from suppliers with child labor violations and workers earning wages too low to feed their own families.
In state prisons, 70% of incarcerated people rely on commissary food to supplement at least half of their meals because, as one person put it, "No one likes the food in prison."
This year, farmers and advocates proposed a bill to challenge this system. The Good Food Purchasing Program would have required transparency about how state institutions source food items and under what conditions they were produced. Even a tiny fraction of that funding would have allowed local farmers to scale up and compete for state contracts.
But multiple state agencies, including the Department of Agriculture — which exists to support farmers — opposed it, calling it "red tape,” and that they didn't have the technical know-how to implement it. Facing billions in federal cuts, Gov. JB Pritzker didn't fight for it.
Local farmers and producers are trying to feed us and fix a broken food system, but they face an uphill battle. Someone needs to document why that is. That's why I do this work — because only some of us farm, but we all eat. Your support helps make these stories possible.
With gratitude,
Illinois government reporter
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