8-5 IAN Do Farmer's Markets Work

 Creating a stronger Treasure Valley food system may be the best path toward economic recovery, researcher says. That’s a recent headline in the Idaho Statesman but is it accurate. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be right back to look into this hypothesis.

Here’s something out of an article the Idaho Statesmen recently published: “A region built on deep agricultural roots is sending $2 billion a year outside the area for food and food production costs.That's money that could turn the economy around if it were spent here at home, said Ken Meter of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis, who put together a report on the local food economy.

Meter found that if Valley families purchased from local farmers just 15 percent of the food they eat at home, it could produce $165 million of new local farm income.”

 Great theory but University of Idaho economist Dr. Paul Patterson is skeptical: “I’m not saying that it’s not something that could be done but generally on smaller scale agriculture if you look at how anything that’s sold in the farmer’s markets, those tend to be sold at a price higher than if you bought in the supermarkets. A food production and distribution system in this country is designed to provide food to consumers at the lowest price.”

So after all is said and done, it’s a marvelous idea and great theory to buy locally and put money directly into local producers pockets but these are hard times and consumers who are under economic pressure will probably go to Walmart or Costco before farmer’s markets due to cost limitations.