Letter to the Editor

Where are your dollars going every month? More specifically, where are your food dollars are going?

Montanans spend more than $3 billion dollars per year on food. Up until 2010, the value of all the livestock and crops produced by farms and ranches in Montana was $3 billion. Of all the food consumed in Montana, only about 10% of what Montanans eat is produced in the state.

Again, Montanans only eat 10% of food produced locally. Therefore, Montana businesses are losing about $2.7 billion dollars to out of state businesses to produce food that, for the most part, could be produced here.

The US Department of Labor estimates that it costs about $58,000 to create a new job. That means about 46,000 good paying jobs could be created if we only ate food made in Montana!

Maybe that’s a pretty tall order, so imagine just a 10% increase in consumption of foods made in Montana; we would create 4,600 new jobs.

Do yourself and all of us a favor, eat healthy – eat smart – eat Montana-made foods. Take the Montana Local Food Challenge at mtlocalfoodchallenge.org.

Bruce Smith

Farm-to-Table Project

Glendive, MT

 

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