Jeffrey Alexander Martin

County Commissioner Kim Cyr and I were talking about the dangers of a highly political year, like this year, for farms and food access. It will be a year of fear. Not because it needs to be. Not necessarily because there's a legitimate reason for a higher sense of fear. It will be a year of fear because that's beneficial for running political campaigns. It appears to me that the big push will be to use the scare of a virus to shut down small and local food production and distribution. There will, of course, be many other political maneuvers throughout the year, but restricting local food access and production will be detrimental to the country, the state, and our local area at some point in the future, and that's a weakness we should pay attention to and work to avoid. You have to eat to survive. Everyone has to eat to survive. If food access is limited, if local food production is restricted, then you are dependent for your life and health on whoever controls your access t