If You Want More Local Food, Stop Criminalizing Family Farmers

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22. Seems you are one of the lucky few.

The Wal-Mart here makes a big to-do about selling a handful of local produce in the middle of the season. Big deal, they sell a few tomatoes from the next county over and melons, pumpkins and watermelons from the state next to us and call it local. Yet there is a lot more local food available they refuse to carry. And come winter, no chance of you selling your local greenhouse tomatoes, they would rather import them from the other side of the country. If Wally World would buy mostly local during the full growing season, Appalachia might not be the job desert it is today.

I suppose blueberries would be tough to grow in winter but lettuce and carrots are fairly easy to grow in a greenhouse in winter if you get them stated before your daylight hours drop below 10 a day. Just think of the thriving greenhouse businesses that would dot the landscape if Wally World would buy local during the winter or buy most of their produce local.

Yes, you can't get bananas and oranges in a four season climate but you would be surprised what you can grow in greenhouses. The problems is the market is not there.

Our egg inspector is coming today to re-inspect us (another $50). We failed when he was here the last time. He said the goldfish we had in the upstairs bedroom (where we do not keep or wash eggs) was a health hazard and we had to get rid of it. We put our dog outside (in a warm dog house) and gave away our cats in the basement (where we do not keep or wash eggs) in order to pass, I had no idea goldfish were such a health hazard.