Agriculture
Sowing Resilience
North Carolina boasts nearly 43,000 farms covering over 8.1 million acres of farmland, producing $18.7 billion in agriculture product sales (eighth in the nation in 2022). Even more impressive, output…
Food desert
Liberty
Government-Owned Grocery Stores … What Could Go Wrong?
Jim Geraghty of National Review Online assesses one major city’s plan to get into the grocery business. [T]he era of government-run grocery stores may not be as dead and buried…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
“The truly progressive position is to say people have a right to camp out and sleep in front of a store but not buy a bag of pretzels there.”
That’s Walter Olson’s take on the left’s current campaign to shut down dollar stores. For a full discussion of this latest piece of progressive lunacy, see Unjust Deserts by Steven Malanga:…
Health Care
Another take on the health-based attack against dollar stores
Following John Trump’s lead, Steven Malanga of City Journal explores the growing health-focused campaign against dollar stores. [C]ommunity health outcomes haven’t changed significantly, and activists think that they know why.…
Education
“Anywhere you live, you’ve got to have rules and regulations. Otherwise, you would just have whatever.”
The comment above is from Forest Park City Manager Angela Redding, explaining to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter why the city shut down a fruit and vegetable stand operated by an area…
Liberty
Greensboro ‘food desert rescuer’ closes its doors
The Renaissance Community Cooperative—which received generous help from local government and nonprofit groups to help to alleviate the ‘food desert’ that is supposedly northeast Greensboro—announced it will close on January…
Budget, Taxation & Economy
Your tax dollars at work: Gardening and self-esteem edition
Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon explores another dubious use of taxpayer funding. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending a quarter of a million dollars on an effort…
Liberty
Chasing retailers from poor areas, then complaining about ‘food deserts’
“Progressives” have a terrible track record of choosing policies to help the poor.
Health Care
New Carolina Journal Online features
Will Rierson reports for Carolina Journal Online on the questionable benefits of government “food desert” policies. John Hood’s Daily Journal explains how a new group helped highlight broad agreement about…
Elections & Public Integrity
New Carolina Journal Online features
Barry Smith reports for Carolina Journal Online on a pilot program in North Carolina designed to address “food deserts.” Andy Taylor’s Daily Journal warns against learning the wrong lessons from…
Liberty
Local governments in the foodservice business
Two very interesting articles over the weekend about government’s role in the foodservice industry, albeit from very different angles. First up is my hometown N&O’s write-up on the City of…
Agriculture
High Point’s federally-funded farmers market
While we’re on the subject feds and food deserts-—-the City of High Point has been named a beneficiary of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Foods, Local Places program. The funds will help the city establish a…