Over the past two months, the food system has seen tremendous disruption. While grocery stores struggled to fill their shelves, it has become more apparent that the industrial food system is as delicate as it is complex. More people in our community are relying on local farmers as a main source of food - this has been critical to helping these small businesses stay afloat.
An article published on The Counter last month describes the “avalanche of sudden growth” that small farms have been experiencing during the first few weeks of the pandemic. Here in Austin, our SFC Farmers’ Market team is hearing words of gratitude from farmers each weekend. If you’ve visited the market recently, we’re sure you have too.
That said, we need policies at the state and federal level that will help make sure farmer and rancher businesses can be sustained through the pandemic and will continue to thrive in the long term. There are several pieces of legislation moving at the federal level that will influence this. Read on for some timely updates as we monitor action at the federal level.