Root Causes:
Supply
Assumptions:
- Local sustainable food is a good thing
- Demand for local sustainable food - at current prices (small to large premium vs non-local sustainable and not) - is not a problem
- There isn't enough volume of local sustainable food in the regional system
- There aren't enough local sustainable farms and farmers
- Farming is difficult to do profitably
- Capital needs are high
- Land
- Built infrastructure
- Machinery, equipment, vehicles
- Operating cost coverage during transition to sustainable
- Labor shortage
- No career ladder
- Increasingly unpredictable weather & lack of whole farm insurance to mitigate risk
- The ones that exist aren't big enough to produce enough volume
- Many obstacles going from small to big
- Many obstacles for new farmers starting out
- There aren't enough local sustainable farms and farmers