According to The Boston Globe, people spend on average 13 percent of their income on food. In order to compensate for rising gas prices, people are aggressively looking for ways they can save money. Cutting back on the amount they spend on food is usually at the top of the list, especially since food prices have been increasing dramatically. Organic food can be costly, and it seems easy to justify buying cheap, factory-farm produced meat and produce. However, the truth is we cannot afford to continue buying from factory-farms long term.
Among the many hidden costs of food, subsidies rank the highest in terms of actual dollar amounts. The government offers big business farmers subsidies to keep food costs below the cost of food production so America can stay competitive on the international market. When we buy cheap food we have already paid for part of the food in taxes, or else that food came from a country with unfair labor practices. If we revert back to eating locally we would not need to pay taxes for farming subsidies. For more information on this visit www.truecostoffood.org.
Farm subsidies are an international problem. The government just pasted a bill that will spend over $180 billion dollars over the next ten years, which will be given to big business farms. Much of this food will be shipped overseas, which will drive down food costs and put small farmers out of business. So not only are we buying sub-par food for ourselves with taxes, we are buying sub-par food for other people with the subsidies. And this is not charitable giving, because it is highly destructive to the local economy in other countries and provides people with less nutritious food. Supporting local, organic farms is the best for everyone’s economy long term. For more information on this visit www.commondreams.org or Google “farm subsidies.”
