Does knowing your farmer make food safer?

Absolutely not.

Maybe if you ask the right questions, and get honest answers, but even then, only a maybe.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new youtube vid has lots of stuff about local and regional, economics but no evidence of why local is better. And nothing about food safety

The ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative, chaired by Deputy Secretary Merrigan, is the focus of a task force with representatives from agencies across USDA who will help better align the Department’s efforts to build stronger local and regional food systems. This week alone, USDA will announce approximately $65 million in funding for ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiatives.

To be fair, USDA did announce nearly $10,000 in funding for the University of Minnesota to bring together experts on food safety and regulations for a discussion of marketing to institutions like K-12 schools, colleges, universities, hospitals and other health care facilities.

Leave it to the academics to ask for money to meet. Foods safety needs to be front and center of any food initiative.

And this was my farmer near Guelph, Jeff Wilson (above, right). He had outstanding food safety, long before others started talking about it.