comes around from time to time. Sad to say,each time it dies from it's own economics. Been there and done that,not once but twice. As soon as you develop your retail sources,bam,here comes subsidized Corporate America and you can not compete.

NRCS is offering cost sharing for farmers on high tunnels (basically a greenhouse w/o heat) in hopes of putting more fresh local food.

It's an incredible deal and we could never afford one ourselves.

They have been pushing more fresh local food in my county. Have a store has all locally produced stuff and they are even getting the local schools to buy fresh stuff instead of frozen.


http://www.wsaz.com/content/news/USDA-recognizes-Cabell-County-Schools-Food-Service-365865611.html

local farmers. They proudly display signs of what farm the produce comes from.

Z

"Get big or get out" of farming. Since 1971, all the USDA has done is screw the small farmer. If I were a small farmer, I would enter a partnership with the federal govt if it put me at risk of failing if the govt did not deliver its end. We need a farm-land policy that encourages small farms over big farms. Only Bernie would do that.

The only way most small producers could compete is to be heavily subsidized like in Europe.

I'm all for that, starting with national healthcare which would help a LOT.

Also something to think about......is the way produce is grown and shipped now.

So a LOT of certain things come from FEW sources. Hence when you get an outbreak now of some bacteria in food, it affects more people.

Also if there were some weather catastrophe or something it might affect the food supply because so much of any one thing comes from one source.


Sort of like with energy. What if everybody in the US had solar panels or something and produced 10% of their own energy? Power grid would be less susceptible to disruption.

TIA!

http://www.grownyc.org/greenmarket

That people were screaming that the FDA was going to shut local growers and farmers markets down with new regulations?

climate or what, but there are a lot of road-side produce markets nearby here in Florida. I was suspicious about where it came from and do ask whenever I'm curious, but a good amount is grown locally.