The folks on the coasts probably think that they also truck in the feed to the farms... And I'm guessing they probably think the feed is made in factories...
IMHO, every high school class should have a "farm to meat packing plant" day. See where your food comes from.
<rant on>
The people I work with are of the type that have literally no conception of where the things they buy come from, beyond "the store". When you buy a gallon of milk, you don't see the dairy farm, the milking machinery, the diesel trucks, the pasteurizing equipment, the logistic distribution companies, the oil and oil wells that fuel the process, the natural gas being pumped, shipped and formed into plastic jugs.
And, that's just on the surface. All of this equipment was manufactured by people... Smart people with incentive to create. People mined the iron ore, smelted it by burning mined coal to form steel, which had to be cast into forms - these forms had to be stamped, pressed, turned, milled, hardened and ground, then shipped to a factory where they are assembled into finished products. All of this is required for a farmer to get a motor/ball bearing/piping/etc to keep his dairy operation running.
The sheer level of industry and manufacturing that keeps everything running is astounding. People take it for granted, that they can always go get a gallon of milk at the grocery store for a few dollars. But that milk does just appear - it takes land, energy, smart people and motivation for them to take risks.
This is why I firmly believe the
best thing government can do is to let the free market work, and stay the heck out of the way of these entrepreneurs. Of course, it won't. Government won't stop until there is no land to use, no energy to put to use, and no motivation to work.
</rant on>