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.
I wonder how much that would raise food prices, and who would suffer most from it.
But you there's definitely something wrong with the current system. For example, coffee and bananas are both shipped a long way by boat, and then trucked much further from the port of entry to the local market. But they're two of the cheapest items at the supermarket. Local growers, who bring produce by van to a nearby farmer's market--only a few miles--tell me that shipping is a big part of their costs. Why is this? If we stopped subsidizing long-distance shipping, would it make sense to start subsidizing local transport of goods?