Unless you hand pick it off the tree or out of the ground yourself, produce and other food can arrive as mysteriously as your dreams these days.

Who raised this turkey? Where on earth did those soybeans sprout?

Maybe you don't care, in which case there are plenty of food companies more than happy not to provide you with answers.

For everyone else -- the people who wouldn't mind knowing a thing or two about the birthplace of their bananas -- there's Organic Valley. And Heritage Farms. And, to some extent, Dole.

Such web-savvy organizations and others are providing innovative ways for individuals to make the connection between food and farm. Meanwhile, as such tools illuminate certain food chains, the ones remaining in the dark seem, by contrast, increasingly opaque.

"The more transparency in the food chain, the better," said Michael Pollan, a leading investigative food writer and author of the recent book "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals."

"It's an interesting way for companies doing food sustainably and justly and humanely to make a statement and distinguish themselves and essentially say, 'Look, we've got nothing to hide.'

"And I think that that could have a very positive effect on the industry, if they start competing on the basis of transparency rather than price."

While much of what we put in our bodies still has a derivation of mystery (did it grow in the grocery store?), we are, item by item, able to begin lifting the shade -- at least in some cases. And those cases stand out.

TRANSPARENCY MEETS TECHNOLOGY

Welcome to the virtual farmers' market, where consumers and producers can come face to face. Sort of.

Some food companies are providing generators on their Web sites that allow you to make the direct link between finished product and point of origin.

Organic Valley, a national farmer-owned cooperative based in LaFarge, Wis., gives you information, pictures and profiles of the hearty looking farmers and families who cultivated the exact soybeans that went into the carton of soy milk in your fridge.

You can punch in the expiration date -- for example, May 5, 2007 -- and see that farmer Gary Bakken, from Decorah, Iowa, was at least partially responsible for the soy milk in your bowl of morning cereal.

"The Internet is a connection tool," Organic Valley spokeswoman Sarah Bratnober said. "It's a great way for us to let consumers into our world, because transparency is really an important part of our cooperative."

The organic division of Dole Food Company puts farm codes on its banana labels. Type in the number -- 776, for example -- and you get a little description of the farm where it grew -- in this case, Don Pedro Farm, in La Guajira, Colombia.

You can see pictures, view its organic certification details, and link to the place through Google Earth.

MEET YOUR MEAT AND MORE

For the socially responsible carnivores out there, log onto Heritage Foods USA.

On their site, you can look up the certificate number from your meat and find out, for example, that "You have received an American Bronze turkey raised by Frank Reese of Good Shepherd Ranch in Lindsborg, Kansas!"

And there's a good-sized black-and-white picture of Mr. Reese, whose deep, earnest eyes seem to say, "You can trust me."

Heritage Foods, which specializes in selling foods -- particularly rare varieties of meat -- from small farms to consumers and wholesale buyers, also has a Web cam at the Good Shepherd Ranch.

Talk about transparency: If anybody mistreated those turkeys, you would see it for yourself, in real time.

The web is not the only tracking tool for foodies. The Consumer Information Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, is in the process of developing a cell phone application that consumers can use to retrieve instantaneous information about products before making a purchase.

Take a picture of the barcode on a given item at the store, and your cell phone delivers back a score based on social, environmental and health standards. Before buying that bottle of laundry detergent, bar of soap or box of crackers, for instance, you can see how those products rate and can search for detailed information.

STILL A NICHE MOVEMENT

While these companies are striving to draw a closer connection between consumer and farmer, not everybody in the industry has moved toward such transparency. This is partly because not all consumers are so inquisitive.

"Nobody's ever, to my knowledge, said, 'Where was this grown?'" said Thomas Young, Vice President R&D and Agricultural Services at Del Monte Fresh Produce Company, about Del Monte customers.

"That certainly is important to us, to know exactly where all of the fruits and vegetables that we sell are grown," he said. "And if our marketing colleagues tell us that this is important, then my group in R&D would make that (traceability) happen. And so far, people buying Del Monte haven't said that."

Chiquita Brands International had a similar response.

"Certainly we have the ability, in terms of traceability, to figure out where the bananas came from," said Chiquita spokesman Mike Mitchell. "But we're not hearing from consumers a specific demand for that kind of level of detail."

Chiquita's Web site doesn't offer feel-good photos of farmers or cams in the field. Instead, it highlights a different kind of connection: that between the consumer and the company brand.

"With powerful brand icons like the Chiquita blue label, Miss Chiquita, and the Chiquita jingle, consumers have a strong emotional bond with the Chiquita brand," the Web site proudly tells potential retail clients.

Indeed, it's easy to accept accountability from a brand, a logo or a song you can hum -- it's something you recognize, something you've come to trust. But is that just an easy out? Is the consumer at fault for not seeking out the information?

One might wonder -- as more companies choose transparency -- why others don't.

"You end up doing it where you've got the best story to tell," said Pollan. "There are so many places growing and preparing our food that don't want us to look at how they're doing it. And that should tell you all you need to know."

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Hillary Rhodes is an asap reporter based in New York.

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