Smolak Farms Owner Talks Local Food Biz to Washington

Advice from was sought by the White House.

Michael Smolak was invited by the White House Business Council to attend a roundtable discussion on local food and the economy on May 30 at the Rialto Restaurant in Cambridge.

The event featured Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The purpose of the roundtable is to listen to local businesses and get feedback on how the Obama Administration can support local growth as well as make sure businesses are taking advantage of the resources and programs designed to help them.

"Very interesting forum," Smolak said. "The points that I made were several and were well received."

The points Smolak made were as follows:

1. There are many farm to school food programs, can we reverse it and do a school to farm program so that children can learn about nutrition and their food source? We have about 10,000 to 14,000 children that come through on our education programs each year.
2. There was the concern that the average age of a farmer is between 57 and 60... There will be a massive turnover in farmland in the next sveral years. What can be done about it? I am the President of Land For Good ...a nonprofit clearinghouse for farmland and working lands transfer issues and this is exactly what we do. It is visionary and the only organization in the country that is in the forefront of this.  It is New England based and oriented... but should have national application.
3. Food is a matter of National Security and 16% of the GDP is Agriculturally based... We do not want to trade our food production capacity to overseas lands and become a hostage to foreign soil as we have become to oil and other natural resources. We spend 8.7% of our GDP on food which is the lowest in the world followed by Canada at 10.2 % and the rest of the world is up from that.