Pingree Introduces Food, Farms and Jobs Act

Common Ground Country Fair, Unity, Maine 2010 Maine is among the states with the largest number of new small farms. Many are started by young people entering farming for the first time. Fishermen's Voice Photo

No matter whom I am talking to, it is clear that Mainers want affordable access to safe, healthy food. We have the farmers to do that right here in Maine, but federal policy is making it burdensome for them to produce the food they want to grow and people want to eat.
That is why I introduced the HYPERLINK “http://email.capitolhillnewsonline.com Local Food, Farms, and Jobs Act to support the local-food movement.

Warren Knight of Smiling Hill Farm joined me to announce the bill at Jordan’s Farm in Cape Elizabeth. For years, his family’s dairy farm struggled with federal policy that favored huge farms and industrial agriculture. The farm decided to change their model by selling directly to customers and bringing them to the farm. The local-food movement is one of the main reasons it’s still operating, he said.

Warren’s story seems especially hopeful in this dark economy—but his is not the only one. Unlike most states, the average age of Maine’s farmers is going down as younger people get into the business, and the number of acres in cultivation is going up. Consumers are driving this demand as more and more care about eating healthy, good-tasting, organic food produced by people they know. Even in these hard times, the number of farmers markets has skyrocketed.
But outdated federal policy doesn’t offer enough support for this trend that is healthy for local farms, the economy, and the environment. Even a small investment could create thousands of jobs—not just for farms but all the businesses that service them.

The bill I introduced includes commonsense reforms like:

• Strengthening and expanding infrastructure—such as slaughterhouses—to make it easier for farmers to process their products and get them to market;

• Creating a crop insurance plan that works for small and diversified farms

• Helping schools buy local food rather than processed items that aren’t healthy for our kids; and

• Allowing customers to use SNAP cards at farmers markets and other outlets so people of all incomes can buy local.