Subsidise local small and family farms
The farmers market is great! But ridiculously expensive, making it a trendy outing for the elite - rather than a truly useful lifestyle choice available to all. Most people don't know that the reason the GMO / hormoned up / poisoned with antibiotics and mostly imported farm food you can get at Safeway is so cheep is because big factory farms are for the most part subsidized by our governments. If local and regional farmers were subsidized in such a way, an over-all better quality of food would be more readily available - and more people would make the choice to buy it. Even those that don't care whether they're eating organic or not, would go for the cheaper option. So let's make local food, grown by our own farmers the cheaper option! Tax breaks - subsidies! Lets make imported food more expensive - which makes sense right? Shouldn't food, that has to be trucked / flown / shipped in from somewhere else be more expensive?
Sky Bray
shared this idea
Direct subsidies unlikely; however the City can support local farms through a local food procurement policy, which is addressed in the draft Greenest City Action Plan.
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Drive More
commented
The problem is not subsidizing it is the various produce marketing boards who pay farmers peanuts for their produce and sell it at a higher price to the distributors who charge more to the retail outlets. A farmer cannot sell produce direct to the end eater that is controlled by the marketing boards except at a roadside stand on the farm . Otherwise they get charged and fined for Bootlegging.