Federal bucks reap a bumper crop of farmers markets

Know your farmer, know your food, but most importantly, know where your tax dollars are going. As part of first lady Michelle Obama’s healthy eating initiative, the U.S. Department of Agriculture now provides over $15 million in federal grants to subsidize farmers markets across the country, promoting local and organic foods to communities where demand is already high. The USDA’s Farmers Market Promotion Program is designed to help farmers meet the skyrocketing demand for homegrown food and specifically aims to help make those foods more accessible to lower-income consumers, but many agriculture experts and taxpayer advocates say the grants are a waste of taxpayer dollars and a perfect example of the federal government meddling in the private market that doesn’t need the help. The USDA awarded nearly $80,000 to the Columbia Heights Community Marketplace in Washington to help establish a new Wednesday evening farmers market and promote food-stamp redemption at the market in a city with multiple such markets and in an area where the average home price is $518,400, according to data from Zillow.com. “That’s outrageous. There’s absolutely no reason why a bunch of craft beer-drinking, white-collar hipsters need a farmers market paid for by hard-working, tax-paying families across America,” said Ryan Ellis, tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform. Other critics say that the grants are the USDA’s way of solving a problem that they themselves created by subsidizing certain crops under the periodic farm bills...more