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In this section of the site you'll find news and information we come across related to local businesses in Lafayette Colorado as well as local food initiatives along the Front Range and beyond.
Plans to Boost Commodity Production a House Of Cards
via National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
Posted May 17, 2022 8:37 pm
As usual, read the full article, but it is the summary of the argument of the post that sparked some comments for me:
Farmers and consumers deserve a fair shake. NSAC believes that taxpayer dollars, if they are to be spent, should be used to uplift resilient production systems and nutritious landscapes. This must include investments in conservation programs and additional incentives for farmers to adopt practices consistent with sustainable, regenerative, agroecological farming.
Heightened soil health will lead to lower input costs and greater natural yields, which will in turn restore farmer agency. These initiatives would also provide clear returns on investment to the average consumer, as opposed to our current system which produces heavily processed foods that contribute to worsening diet-related illness and rising health care costs.
I'm in agreement with the sentiment expressed with this blog post from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, but the issue as usual is getting to the ideal they lay out from where we are today with a commodity system.
By no stretch am I fully educated in these new or legacy agricultural systems, but when you have a massive system that needs to be overhauled, you have to tackle it from the bottom with tiny changes. Well, that is how I would as a programmer tackling a large application that has been around for years. You can't just shut it down and start from scratch. You have to replace it, bit by bit, from within the existing system you've got.
My oversimplified thinking starts from building up local and regional food chains by creating a sustainable, market driven marketplace for consumers, businesses and farmers to connect directly. You have to build it from the bottom up in a self-sustaining manner if possible, otherwise you just create a new system with the same dependencies as the old one.
The government can definitely help by shifting funding programs to local and regional food systems development, but this sort of sea change cannot come from the top.
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