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It’s a fact! 100% of men, women and children eat food, and 97.5% of must buy their food from others who bring it from an average of 2,000 miles away. And so the hungry ask: ”What’s in this tomato? Who planted that broccoli? Is it safe to eat genetically engineered corn? Why are they irradiating meat? Are we running short of water? Why is China growing our apples? What will happen to us if we can no longer farm? How safe is our food chain?” The Food Chain is an audience-interactive syndicated newstalk radio program and podcast broadcasting weekly on radio stations and streaming on demand on the internet. The Food Chain, which has been named the Ag/News Show of the Year by California’s legislature, is hosted by Michael Olson, author of the Ben Franklin Book of the Year award-winning MetroFarm, a 576-page guide to metropolitan agriculture. The Food Chain is available live via GCN Starguide GE 8 and delayed via MP3/FTP. For clearance and/or technical information, please call Michael Olson at 831-566-4209 or email michaelo@metrofarm.com
Episodes
Sunday Aug 04, 2024
Sunday Aug 04, 2024
Jennifer Leidolf, CDFA Direct Marketing Program Supervisor &Joshua W. Bingham, Public Information Officer II, Division of Inspection Services
(Farmers Market Certification, Governance and Marketing)
When it comes to which farms get the most help from the government, the answer is most always the biggest farms. This leads us to ask:
Can there be a government program that helps small farms more than big farms?
Our federal government hands out a lot of money to farmers. How much is a lot? In 2021 it was about $14.5 billion.
Which farms get the government money? Data from USDA’s Economic Research tells us…
About 75% of large farms with gross incomes of over $350,000 get an average of $66,000 per year; about 31% of intermediate farms with gross incomes of less than $350,000 get an average $12,800; and 29% of small farms received an average of $8,300.
From this thumbnail sketch is easy to see that the more money a farm makes, the more help it gets from the government. And conversely, the less money a farm makes, the less help it gets from the government. This observation led us to seek out a government program that helps small farms more than big farms.
We found such a program, in California, and its called the California Certified Farmers market program.
Connect: www.metrofarm.com