How Buying Local Can Pull States (and the Country) out of Debt

by Greg Plotkin
food.change.org

If you could boost your state's economy just by purchasing local apples instead of those grown across the county, would you pony up the extra cash?

While it seems unlikely that small changes in food purchasing decisions can result in a full-scale reversal of a state's economic condition, a new study shows just how important local food dollars are (or can be) to a state's economy.

The University of Georgia's Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development recently published a study finding that state residents could significantly increase Georgia's tax revenue by spending just a little more on local food each year. Specifically, if each of the state's 1.7 million households spent just $10 more annually on locally produced farm products, Georgia would collect an additional $1.9 billion in funds, enough to cover the entire $1.7 billion budget shortfall predicted for the state in 2012.

Currently, many of the nation's leading food-producing states are dead broke. For example, both Illinois and New York are facing multi-billion dollar budget deficits in 2012, yet they rank as two of the top-producing farm states in the country. If residents of these states decided to purchase just a small amount of their food locally, they might be able to avoid difficult budget decisions like having to slash funding for programs that protect farmland in order to keep state parks open (as happened in New York this spring).

(More here.)

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