Originally Posted by cooker
One mechanism is to stop subsidizing distant produce and make consumers pay full price. That includes tolling goods on highways, ending below market water or grazing rights, and stopping other agricultural subsidies, especially on exports.
There are too many problems with our current market system. It promotes taking advantage of people in some third world country because it’s cheaper to ship long distances then to pay a decent wage. It promotes too many middlemen to insure distribution globally, nationally, regionally, sub-regionally and locally. So any locally grown or produced products have to compete on a global scale in order to be included into the distribution channels. If somebody else is selling a fraction of a cent cheaper they win and everyone else loses. Too many chain stores don’t buy locally because it is a logistic and accounting nightmare as they have to supply goods for a whole quadrant of the US and not just one city. So even if the locally produced goods are cheaper they can’t compete because they can’t supply the quantities needed. There are so many factors against locally produced goods that I don’t see any easy fix.