Linda Best: Farming & Business Funding

Linda speaks about growing up on a farm, and how her career helped her inform her current support for ongoing farming. There are many topics discussed regarding eating food, farming, and well educated conversations about the food system

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Here are a few quotes: 

• We need to be educated about the situation regarding our food.
• I am thrilled to be able to work with some of the hardest working people that you’ll find anywhere.. I don’t think people realize how many hats people have to wear
• Farmers are choosing to sell the land because that is their pension… the average age of a farmer … is 57… we have all kinds of land that is no longer in production… there are way too many barriers to entry.
• I would say that food is a key to rural economic development and it is vastly underutilized.
• We have now loaned over 1.9 million… 112 loans to 72 businesses
• The bottom line for farmers is not what it should be. When you see people investing their money in order to get a 6, 10, 12% return on investment, farmers would love to be able to even know they would get a 5 or even a 3, or 5% return on their investment

I read the statistics, that the good news was that … the remaining.. producers …instead of basically actually paying us 3 cents on the dollar to eat their food… [were making several cents]

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• I think that the best possible regulation is for me to buy from someone I know and buy the best food I can because it is grown here with all of the qualities I mentioned
• We need to raise awareness …who has some discretion around their spending were to switch just 10%, and 50% would be wonderful … from whatever is cheapest to whatever is local… everything that we do helps. 
• If we believe in ourselves and want to support ourselves… we have billions and billions of dollars which are building other people’s economies.
• The quality of food that we can produce… there is no comparison between the taste of good food

Note: These are conversation pieces as we go and please comment below. Recognizing how we support each other as we eat together – and remember to have a delightful conversation while appreciating all of the effort it took to bring food to the table.