Top 10 free market ag policy ideas
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Free market agricultural policy seeks to move the legislative needle toward more farm independence and improved food self- reliance.
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Historically, government efforts have placed great emphasis on increasing the availability of resources to agriculture.
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At state and local levels, the chance to influence free market agricultural policy with smaller, diverse targets presents a greater opportunity to move the needle, or to keep it from moving in the reverse direction.
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Regulations favoring one individual’s story over a community’s experience are damaging to agricultural businesses, rural families, and towns.
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Idaho has the largest percentage of irrigated acres in the Mountain States.
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BY CHRIS CARGILL
INTRODUCTION
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Farm policy ideology varies intensely across many divides. Protecting farms and providing access to affordable food are two values governing much of the agricultural policy discussion.
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Farm protection discussions range from farm preservation to farm independence. Examples of farm preservation policies include subsidies, government funded loans, beginning farmer loans, land trust efforts, farmer’s market funding and more. Farm independence is the belief that farms are adaptable and resilient, capable of minimizing costs and risks, maximizing resources for their needs, and pushing their own goods to their own markets.
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Free market agricultural policy seeks to move the legislative needle toward more farm independence and improved food self-reliance. As more farms thrive by relying on ingenuity and grit to move products to markets, individuals can more easily meet food needs with affordable and secure food.
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