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Ten Ingredients for a Healthy Local Food Economy

Panel of experts teams with audience to create recipe for sustainability. Please add your own.

By Colleen Kimmett, 18 Oct 2010, TheTyee.ca

Museum of Vancouver footage from the Ten Ingredients discussion, part of the MOV's Food and Beers series on local food issues.

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Meeru Dhalwala calls it the "Rock and Revolution blue jean mentality."

On a guerilla market research mission to a big name grocery store, she noticed that women wearing the expensive denim brand were choosing the cheapest options when it came to their food choices.

She shared this anecdote at a Food and Beers series event Thursday night to illustrate what pollsters, retailers and farmers already know: that, no matter the income bracket, the majority of people make price -- not place of origin -- the deciding factor when it comes to buying food. And here in North America, we're used to getting it cheap.

Dhalwala, cookbook author and co-owner of Vij's restaurant, was one of four local food experts who took part in the panel discussion at the Museum of Vancouver. The question put to them: How do we cook up a recipe for local, sustainable food success?

She was joined by Ian Walker, founder and president of Left Coast Naturals, Lori Stahlbrand, founder and president of Local Food Plus, and Amy Robertson, chair of the Vancouver Farmers' Market Society.

They agreed that the low value placed on food is just one challenge of building a local, sustainable food economy.

Because, even for the segment of society that is willing to shell out more to support local farmers, it often isn't easy to do. And what about the growing number of people in society who can't afford food?

There was also consensus that there needs to be an infusion of coordination, communication and education at each level of the local food chain in order to make it robust and to make local sustainable choices more readily available, and more equitable.

Moderator David Beers asked each panelist to bring their own specific ingredients for local food success, and afterwards, invited audience members to throw their morsels in the pot. Here's the recipe they came up with.

1. Create a task force to coordinate the local food market

Such a task force would coordinate all of the dots in the local food economy, suggests Dhalwala. "If I want to buy local, I would like to have... coordination so that it all makes sense to me as a businessperson," she says.

Forging relationships with individual farmers is a lot of work. If there was one place, a website, for instance, where farmers could list products and prices, it would make shopping easier for busy restauranteurs who need to order food in a quick and efficient manner. "Some kind of one-stop shopping," Dhalwala said.

She says that price point is a huge issue for her. "You can get organic (beef) from Australia for 10 dollars cheaper than you can get organic local. A bigger farm is going to be more efficient and less expensive than a smaller farm. Could farmers ban together to come up with their own form of efficiency?"

This point resonated with Scott Burgess, an audience members who used to manage a restaurant in Toronto, where he was responsible for buying local food. Burgess said it was easier there than in Vancouver, because the city had more distributors.

"It was an easy way to get a fairly real market comparison as opposed to having to talk to a bunch of individual farmers," he said. "There's a demand that's not being met. I think a task force could really help articulate what the concerns are and how to address them."

2. Pool resources to achieve economies of scale

This is an important ingredient to help both small-scale farmers and processors break out of the cottage industry and reach a wider market.

Amy Robertson, who along with husband Gregor farmed with Langley Organic Growers, described the panic they felt when an acre of strawberries all ripened at once. "We were able to call our neighbour, who had a connection to a large labour force. Sharing those things is really important if you're going to produce a lot of food in general."

But, as Abbotsford pork farmer Jerry Gelderman pointed out after the discussion, cooperation amongst farmers is easier said than done. "One of the things you have to realize in agriculture, whether you're small or large, if you have a day of sunshine and a crop needs to come off, everybody's needs to come off. You can't buy one piece of equipment and say we'll do ours today and yours tomorrow."

Gelderman said this is especially true in our changing climate -- erratic weather patterns make harvesting when the sun shines even more imperative, if you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

"The other thing you have to realize is, for a person to be a farmer, they're an independent person," Gelderman added. In other words, perhaps farmer co-operatives are possible, but not easy, and not always successful.

Just as many family farms have disappeared from our landscape, so too has regional food processing infrastructure. Efficiency through economies of scale, plus cheap labour south of the border, has driven much of the processing out of British Columbia and Canada -- leaving a huge hole in which huge economic potential drains away.

Ian Walker wonders if an economy of scale could be achieved through cooperation and coordination of processors. His company, Left Coast Naturals, manufactures organic snack foods. "To sell sustainable food, if it's local, especially, it's a fairly high price, so you have a limited market that you can sell to," he said. "When you have that cap, that means you can only sell so much. But to build the infrastructure and the equipment, you need to have sales of this much. It's a bit of a chicken and egg issue."

Walker suggested that companies could share the capital and operational costs of processing equipment, making it more economical to produce smaller volumes.

3. Build food hubs throughout the region, and connect them by rail

Another way to offer farmers more infrastructural support is through food hubs. Robertson is part of a group of farmers and food activists in Vancouver working on building New City Market, a place within the city that would offer warehouse, cooler and freezer space for local produce, as well as an indoor/outdoor farmers' market and a certified kitchen.

"Ideally, it would be on a transit route, preferably on the train system," said Robertson.

In fact, farmers in the Fraser Valley used to ship eggs, milk, meat and produce to Vancouver regularly on the Interurban line. It opened in 1910 in anticipation of the thousands who would eventually settle in the Fraser Valley to farm. And a recent feasibility study shows bringing back this line would be affordable and sustainable.

"We'd like to go full circle and re-create that," said Robertson.

4. Engage and educate the public

Without an informed consumer, it's harder to command the price that farmers need to grow food and remain viable.

Robertson suggests such a food hub -- and why not have one in every city in the region? -- could also serve as an educational centre, where people could learn how to preserve the harvest, use local products, and learn from farmers the ins and outs of growing food.

"If we did have this food hub it would be an opportunity to teach them about growing, seeds, health issues, everything that food involves," said Robertson. She mentioned the UBC farm summer camp and children's gardens as good models to replicate.

Stahlbrand's organization, Local Food Plus, recently launched a campaign called Buy to Vote. It asks people to shift 10 dollars a week of what they'd spend on groceries to local, sustainable food.

"If ten thousand people in B.C. were to do that... you would have offset enough greenhouse gas emissions to be the equivalent of taking 400 cars off the road for good," said Stahlbrand. "You would have pumped enough new money into the local economy to create 100 new jobs."

5. Bring ethnic restaurants, retailers and farmers into the local food movement

Dhalwala described one dinner where she and other Vancouver chefs espoused the virtues of using local ingredients -- over a dish of imported tiger prawns.

"In this local food movement, we don't include a lot of the ethnic restaurants," she said. "I think what happened is the local food movement has placed a bigger burden on being local and being ethical on the restaurants that are, for lack of a better word, Caucasian-owned."

She points to the food task force as one way to make it easy for non-Caucasian restauranteurs, retailers and consumers to find local products.

6. Bridge the gap between organic and non-organic

There's organic, and then there's "handshake organic." Dhalwala credits this phrase to Mark Bomford, manager at the UBC farm, but knows it well in her line of business. For her, the difference between certified organic produce and produce that isn't sprayed with pesticides is about $2.99 a pound.

There are many reasons why a farmer doesn't want to, or can't become certified organic. While the organic farming movement was borne out of a desire to move away from industrialized methods of farming, now it's come full circle to the point where many organic farms are operating at an industrial scale.

As Stahlbrand put it, "organic isn't always sustainable, and sustainable isn't always organic."

Her organization, Local Food Plus, has developed what it calls "local sustainable" certification. It is a set of standards that uses integrated pest management systems, permitting the use of some pesticides that are ranked according to Cornell University's environmental impact quotient.

It also factors in things like animal welfare, working conditions, biodiversity and native habitat protection, and on-farm energy consumption.

"I think there are a lot of consumers out there who want to support farmers and want to support their local economy and their local culture. There are a lot of pluses to it," said Stahlbrand. "But it's very hard to know how to identify it. So we said, let's create a way to identify it. And the certified local sustainable label is a way to do that."

7. Leverage the power of public sector procurement

Along with developing the local sustainable label with farmers, Local Food Plus is also connecting these farmers with public sector institutions. Five years ago, it partnered with the University of Toronto on a local food procurement strategy. Now, one residence on campus spends 22 per cent of its food budget on local food.

"These institutions are spending millions of dollars on food every year," said Stahlbrand. "We write the language that goes into the requests for proposals for food service contracts. It helps to scale up the whole system, it helps to educate the public through these institutions, it's a part of how these institutions can meet their climate change requirements."

Stahlbrand's ingredient prompted a question from an audience member, a woman who works for CUPE, who was curious about how international trade agreements might block such procurement policies.

"It's not an issue," Stahlbrand insisted. "The food in most institutions is provided by food services companies. The food service companies themselves are not covered by trade agreements. We've come up against this so many times, and for every argument that you get, there's an answer to it."

8. Protect farmland

Robertson pointed out that British Columbia has some of the best farmland in the world. While B.C. might be ahead of the game to Toronto, for instance, in terms of reducing urban sprawl onto farmland, its Agricultural Land Reserve has still been chipped away at over the past four decades.

"The main, main thing that people in Vancouver should really concentrate on is how to preserve farmland," said Nati King, a farmer in Surrey.

Adriane Carr, Vancouver Centre candidate for the federal Green party, offered this suggestion for protecting food-producing land in cities: "My idea is, why doesn't the city of Vancouver take forward a resolution to the UBCM (Union of BC Municipalities) and the Federation of Canadian Muncipalities, asking the federal government, which has by far the biggest tax power, to rebate municipalities to set aside community gardens and farmers' markets. That way they won't feel the pressure to rezone land for higher density to get the taxes back."

9. Rebuild the social safety net

Gord McGee, a food security facilitator at Kitsilano neighbourhood house, pointed out that, even in high-income areas of Vancouver, there are people who can't afford to eat. This summer, he ran a pocket market for seniors in the neighbourhood.

"They're on a fixed income, and they're paying really high rent," he said. "So they don't actually have money to buy food. And that's in the west end. I don't even know what it's like in the Downtown Eastside."

"We need a good social safety net," responded Stahlbrand. "We need a fair minimum wage, we need a proper old age pension, so that people can afford to buy food at the price that it is worth, not on the backs of farmers."

Robertson pointed out that the B.C. Association of Farmers' Markets ran a highly successful coupon program, in which low-income families received vouchers to use at local farmers' markets, in addition to cooking classes about how to use that produce. It was cancelled this year due to lack of funding.

10. Build pride in our local food system -- and hold politicians accountable to it

Many of the government decisions that affect food and farming fly under the radar, said Herb Barbolet, a food policy analyst and one of the founders of Farm Folk/City Folk. He pointed to Canada and the European Union's proposed trade agreement being negotiated this week in Ottawa, as one example.

Is it possible to mobilize politically around food?

Dhalwala offered this lesson from India, where, two years ago, Monsanto tried to introduce a genetically-modified eggplant that would resist pests.

"The Indian government thought it was a great idea... it was actually supposed to be a no-brainer," Dhalwala said. "The Indians managed to stop Monsanto from coming in, and the government backed down on it, and the reason why? Pride in their eggplant. They weren't trying to be moral... it was a national pride that they gathered. We're going to stick up for our eggplant."

[Editor's note: The Thursday evening event was sponsored by Tides Canada and part of a wide range of Museum of Vancouver programming complementing the Home Grown: Local Sustainable Food exhibit co-presented by the Museum of Vancouver and Farm Folk/City Folk. Coverage of Thursday's panel was made possible by a contribution from VanCity. Look for a video of the event to be posted with this story when it becomes available later this week.]

A request to you: Are you proud of British Columbian produce and farmers, and does 'local' influence your buying decisions? In our comment section, we welcome readers to share their takes on the 10 ingredients. Please add your own. [Tyee]

Colleen Kimmett writes about the environment, business and local food issues for The Tyee and others.

18 Comments:

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  • jnewcomb

    1 year ago

    spend no tax money

    This local food market idea is a shill for activists promoting some silly agenda that would see us resisters out digging in the rutabaga fields. Enough already! Celebrate free trade by stopping the marketing boards from constraining food trade. If you want a local food market, it should ONLY be from a push by consumers - no tax money, no phoney regulations. Some of our best foods are imported, and highest and best use of poor ALR ground is to grow residential living space. If you want sustainability,make a personal decision to stop eating meat and to stop drinking alcohol. But don't try to swindle my tax dollars to pay for your vices.

  • Bytesmiths

    1 year ago

    What about higher cost?

    Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see mentioned "educate consumers about true costs and values of local, sustainable food."

    Humans in the industrialized nations currently spend less of their resources on food than ever before in the history of human civilization. That may seem like "a good thing," but it is not because we are smart or have superior technology or anything -- it's because we're borrowing from the future.

    The so-called "green revolution" of agriculture should really be called the "brown revolution," because it was almost totally driven by non-renewable fossil fuel. Some of those fuels are now in decline, and probably all of them will be by mid-century.

    Each of us has, in effect, 200 "energy slaves" following us around, keeping our homes lit and warm, getting us from place to place, and supplying our food. Those slaves are about to go on strike, and food consumers need to better understand the hidden costs of conventional industrial food production.

    Before fossil fuel, it took fifteen families "on the land" to support every family in the city. That situation may return sooner than anyone expects!

    In terms of energy use and carbon produced, an egg from your neighbour is probably worth five from a conventional industrial confinement egg farm -- whether they're fed organically or not.

    So rather than pandering to industrial agriculture by focusing on "economy of scale," let's get prepared for devoting a greater portion of our effort, be it money, or hours of personal labour, toward the production of our food.

  • Colleen K

    1 year ago

    education about higher costs a key point

    4. Engage and educate the public

    Without an informed consumer, it's harder to command the price that farmers need to grow food and remain viable.

    Robertson suggests such a food hub -- and why not have one in every city in the region? -- could also serve as an educational centre, where people could learn how to preserve the harvest, use local products, and learn from farmers the ins and outs of growing food.

    "If we did have this food hub it would be an opportunity to teach them about growing, seeds, health issues, everything that food involves," said Robertson.

  • Luck

    1 year ago

    FARMING IS THE WAY TO GO AND...........

    FARMING IS A STAPLE OF OUR ECONOMY BELIEVE IT OR NOT.

    A COUNTRY GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD IS A SIGN OF SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

    WE ARE ALLOWING THE CHINESE TO GROW FOOD AND WE ARE BUYING IT BECAUSE WE ARE TO LAZY TO GROW OUR OWN.

    THE GOV OF CANADA HAS CONVINCED PEOPLE WE ARE A SOCIETY THAT CAN BUY ANYTHING FROM ANYBODY WITH NO CONSEQUENCES.

    THE FOOD PRODUCTS WE BUY ARE TAINTED AND CAN BE USED AS A WEAPON AGAINST US.

    I WAS BORN ON A FARM AND WE SUPPLIED OUR LOCAL AREA WITH HEALTHY PRODUCTS, VEGETABLE AND MEAT.

    WE ARE NOW SO OVER REGULATED AND BRAINWASHED THAT WE MAY NEVER RECOVER.

    THIS ARTICLE IS RIGHT ON AND MOST PEOPLE CAN NOT RELATE BECAUSE MINDSET ABOUT LOCAL FARMING IS THAT WE CANNOT DO IT RIGHT.

    LOCAL FARMING SHOULD BE ON EVERY POLITICIANS PLATFORM BECAUSE YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.

    I KNOW BUYING LOCALLY WITHIN 100 MILES I WILL EAT HEALTHY AND NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT HEALTH ISSUES BECAUSE OUR LOCAL FARMING IS REGULATED TO THE YING YANG.

    COME ON PEOPLE OF BC COME TOGETHER NOW, SUPPORT AND EAT LOCALLY AND WE WILL BE HEALTHIER FOR IT.

    LET US BE A WORLD LEADER NOW IN THE IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE GOOD EATING AND GOOD HEALTH.

    OUR WORLD WILL BE A BETTER PLACE AND SO WILL OUR LOCAL ECONOMY.

  • peasant43

    1 year ago

    pie in the sky

    11) Don't go to public forums with business owners and marketeers

    I've been trying to do local food for the past 2 seasons, not for political reasons just cause it tastes better. I belong to 4 CSAs. I've learned to preserve and prepare food well enough that I rarely need industrial food.

    I knew nothing when I started. It takes a lot of time, effort and MONEY. It's a lifestyle change not a consumer option.

    What I've learned is exactly what Pollan found in Omnivore's Dilemma. The majority of the public could care less about food.

    When I mention what I'm doing with food, the first word out of most people is that good food is too expensive and they don't have the time. Strangely, they have no problem with 90 minute commutes and inhalers and insulin for their family.

    Most would rather work overtime for a DVD in their minivan than even consider food. For them food is a commodity--end of discussion.

    Forums like this reaffirm my suspicion that Local Food, like Yoga, is a Boomer fad that's going to pass.

    My completely unscientific conclusion is that nothing but a depression will change the food economy. Which is kind of interesting because most of what I've learned in the past few years has come from people and books from that era.

    My suggestion, if one is serious about food, is to skip the next public meeting, buy a liter of %2 milk, a package of starter and try to make some yogurt.

  • weasel

    1 year ago

    Item # 4 - engage and educate the public

    I'm very interested in Item #4 - 4. Engage and educate the public
    In the public school system, home economics teachers reach thousands of students on a daily basis to educate them about food choices and healthy foods. This group of teachers is often maligned by people who remember a vague ogre from the 1960s who made them whip cream with a fork or cover everything with white sauce. Home economics teachers in the 21st century are well aware of local food issues; some of them start school gardens; others include global concepts in their daily teaching; inexpensive, healthy food is their mantra. I would advise anyone with a sincere interest in teaching about food to take a look at what is happening in the foods classes at their local high schools. It's not their grandmother's home economics any more.

  • jilenium00

    1 year ago

    It's all about hands-on

    It's all about hands-on experience. Show (and feed) people of all ages and backgrounds how to grow, buy, and prepare local food, and the trend will grow. Flashy advertising campaign will only go so far.

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    Tax Distance Travelled!

    Quote:
    You can get organic (beef) from Australia for 10 dollars cheaper than you can get organic local

    If this is indeed the case, and if we are serious about buying local (100 mile diet and all that), then why not institute a tax based on distance travelled? There is no way in a sane world that a cow from Australia can be cheaper than a cow from Alberta..........

  • carfreecity

    1 year ago

    sharing

    promote neighborhood potlucks with local food dishes
    those flash mob potlucks seem like fun too

  • nlo

    1 year ago

    used to getting it cheap?

    Pricing is a black art. I am an okanagan orchardist; we need about 35 cents a pound for apples to make a living; when we get 35 the price in the stores is about $1.50. Last year we (our industry) averaged 12 cents and lost a lot of money. The average retail price was still about a dollar and a half.
    Retail concentration has happened so there will be very little competition; the big 3 (Overwaitea,Safeway,Loblaws) don't like competition. They hire ruthless people with MBA's who shop the world for the best deal; often the deal is due to the generosity of another nations taxpayers; but it's very wrong to believe they "pass on the savings"
    The only thing that will keep farmers in this province alive is if our citizens will stop buying foreign produce; and demand for BC produce will increase and we can demand a premimum for our product so we can get our 35 cents; and it won't cost you any more. Maybe then we won't have to work until midnight and haul our workers around on the back of a tractor.
    Or we need a marketing board like the milk and egg producers; who by the way are not subsidized but protected (from other countries subsidized products). US dairy producers receive direct cash subsidies which is in reality a subsidy to their retailers processors and exporters.

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    nlo

    I do believe it was Brian Mulroney who uttered something along the lines of: "Why make it when you can buy it?"

    And so it came to pass............

  • Opinion

    1 year ago

    coordination

    1. Create a task force to coordinate the local food market

    Ontario has a website and program similar to what this point seems to target. The website is called greenbeltfresh.ca and it is a place for consumers, bulk buyers and farmers/producers to network and shop.
    Sites like that may be good starting points for creating a similar hub of information in BC.

  • GeeHan

    1 year ago

    Agree Agree Agree

    I believe creating a taskforce so to speak is the correct first way to move forward on this issue.

    Without some sort of organization, these farmers will continue to fight an uphill battle. I disagree with JNewcomb, and I was actually just saying during a conversation with some friends the other day that we need to help farmers create regional entities that directly help them organize, process, distribute, sell and market their foods to the general population. The farmers themselves could create Co-op type networks where maybe they have a main market store like suggested above in every community. Base it on our existing regional district layout or something. To start though, what better place than the lower mainland to give something like this a trial run? Put some tax money behind it (better use than some of the other crazy things bureaucrats waste our money on) and see if it flies.

    Yes, granted, it flies in the face of free market economics and is putting the private grocery store owner at a disadvantage, but enough is enough already and lets try some new initiatives to help out our local farmers. Read the orchardist's comments above. The guy can barely make ends meat. But if there was some sort of co-op, maybe each farmer agrees to produce different types of produce, meats etc. based on expected demands, then maybe it makes more sense for them to share in the economic gains created at the local farmers foodmart...

    Anyways, go ahead, call me a commy socialist, but I think we can all agree we need new ways to help our local food producers and the price points and availability of local foods to get the general consumer out of their daily habits.

    Let's start with a task force though to look at some of the issues that were raised...beyond that, kudos at least to the dialogue!!!

  • depthperception

    1 year ago

    Price speaks louder than anything

    No matter how educated people are on the subject of sustainability and making better, conscious choices, cost is always the deciding factor.
    As the opening of this article showed, people who spend over $200 on jeans still choose the cheapest food. That could say something about their priorities or maybe not... but the most important thing to note is that the masses react to PRICE.
    Simple solution: tax stuff that isn't good for the environment OR give tax breaks to business/growers using sustainable methods. If organic is cheaper than everything else, the masses will buy it.

  • morechatter

    1 year ago

    Local foods are more expensive

    Why that is I'm not sure but there are differences as food from Mexico sits on the produce self. Safeway does the US along with the other big stores have their own farms. How to bring down the costs so local grown food can entice the rest. Garden Co ops, donated land, or land that can be borrowed, or given in good faith.
    Tear down those useless food banks that are killing local residents with their kindness as local residents are candidates for kindney disease. Sorry back to tearing down the food banks and building green houses instead and can use volunteers that will get paid in produce or whatever, it can all be worked out. Just think of idle city land and there are plenty of idle hands.

  • morechatter

    1 year ago

    Well planned gardens

    And coordinated that is also a good idea as my friend does a big garden that feeds many and she plans it and works it so her precious time is mapped out.

    produce shelf

    Lets educate the poor down at that local food bank and then give them food that isn't good for their health. There are few people out there that don't know about good eating habits. It is more about bad eating habits and food addictions and poverty and convience as fast food is on the spot.

  • morechatter

    1 year ago

    I have relatives that were big farmers

    My job was shelling those peas and I was 5 years old. I can remember my aunt coming around and patting my head as I would fill up the bowl and then eat the rest. Those fresh organic peas where so good.
    Co operative gardens could be a success because farmers share in their resources and their knowledge and everyone helps outs.

  • rangergord

    1 year ago

    local food economy

    I run a community garden, and market vegetables at a farmers market that we created for the purpose, as well as I help supply a farm to school salad bar project. I have helped promote and develop local food production and have attended many conferences on the subject. Not only that I have done this in BC's northern interior under the most challenging conditions possible. The Fraser Valley and Vancouver are miles ahead in development and potential. Unfortunately its residents seem to be myopic when it comes to food production. I am very much in support of local food in principal but it needs to be a long term vision. We in the north and interior are very dependent on food produced in the fraser valley, okanogan. An ideological adherence to the 100 mile diet would be a disaster for us. Economy of scale is a huge benefit and transportation of food around the globe has always been an important factor whether it was by ship and horseback or train and truck. I love local produce but I have zero desire or ability to give up imported fruit and vegetables in the winter. I eat a vegetarian diet and challenge those who are concerned about the emissions related to food production to reduce their meat consumption. This will have a far larger effectt on fuel consumption, health, environmental impacts, and the food security of the planet than anything else you can do. As far as what else we can do to promote local food, there are two issues that stick out for me. One is regulation. There is simply far to much regulation and only large, well capitalized entities can meet it. Not only that but many well meaning but ignorant people are pushing for still more regulations designed for small producers and local foods through liability insurance schemes and bureaucratic certification regimes. We need deregulation. Just as globalism prospered by axing tariffs the local food movement can only prosper if stifling regulations are killed. There is far to much worry and emphasis on trying to protect the public from food risks. Local food by and large will always be the safest food and problems are much easier to trace and rectify. Second, marketing is where the rubber meets the road. My local market is tiny. At the farmers market I can only access a fraction of that already tiny market. I cannot market to the grocery stores because I have no marketing cooperative that has formal links to the centralized distribution channels of the retail oligopolies. I would like to think that the government would take some responsibility to address these issues. Unfortunately my experience is that government only makes things worse. Tax and regulate is the only thing they know how to do. They do not know how to get out of the way so real people can get things done.

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