FCS Diversity and Inclusion - PROPOSED RULE - MARCH 2011
Dear Mr. Van Meter,
I'm writing you this note to encourage the FCS to fiscally support regional, small-scale food production. When local growers are supported both in their home towns and nationally, local economies will prosper, land health will improve (as small farmers will be growing a diversity of foods, rather than one massive crop of feed-corn or soybeans) and neighbors will be eating food that's safer and tastier (because it came from a few miles away, rather than a few thousand and has little risk of cross-contamination). What's more, it's readily apparent that mass-ag practices work the land in an exhaustible way; without rest, rotations and with synthetic treatments, the land cannot continue to give what it has given. We are going to have many mouths to feed in coming years, but young agrarians need to be encouraged, rather than dissuaded, to come back to the land. If you help look after small growers, more young people will feel supported and will give small-scale farming and gardening a try in their neighborhoods.
As I see it, no harm can come from supporting small-scale growers in rural America. Please consider investing in this legislation and in your local food economy; perhaps you could give a nudge to your work crew to do the same. (What's more, you'll never taste a tomato so good as one picked yesterday, at the farm stand. It's all win-win.)
Many thanks and take care, Regina (a gardener, former farmer intern and soon-to-be apprentice on an heirloom apple orchard)