Include butchers and local processors in this maybe. Eventually there might be enough capital to finance farmers setting up in-house facilities if they demonstrate profitability or something. There's always a solution, usually hundreds in fact.
I would definitely like to see this if it could be done. There are a few options here but the premium is high. I probably should eat a bit less meat anyway though.
It's already done in Germany when I spoke to a grocer there. The farmer will contract a local butcher to process his animals to the customers specs and then will send those items directly to the store down the road. Same goes for Tomatoes or potatoes or whatever you want.
I looked into the rules about this in Canada and nope, not possible.
Your pigs have to be loaded up alive on trucks where they're shipped a few hundred km away in some cases, in hot trucks, some die on the way and because they died of heat they can't be butchered so they're thrown away, food waste and raising the cost of the other pigs.
Then they have to be slaughtered and processed in places where there are always food borne disease outbreaks, and now Covid on top and then are sent to grocery stores next door to the farmer. And all the while many middle men who only exist because the government regulated their jobs into existence collect money along the way and make groceries expensive relative to freer markets like in Germany.
I knew a tomato farmer and he would love to sell his tomatoes for 3x the price directly to Walmart that was only 1km away, and Walmart would love to pay 1/3 their normal price, and the end customer would love to pay 1/2 the regular price but they can't because of these useless middlemen.
Fun fact: Many vegetable farms waste up to half the food because once it falls down it's not even economical to pick it up or do a second loop to pick up missed veggies. If the farmers could triple their price and still deliver a cheaper product to the store then they could find it economical to pick up the food that would otherwise be rotten away.
Include butchers and local processors in this maybe. Eventually there might be enough capital to finance farmers setting up in-house facilities if they demonstrate profitability or something. There's always a solution, usually hundreds in fact.
I would definitely like to see this if it could be done. There are a few options here but the premium is high. I probably should eat a bit less meat anyway though.
It's already done in Germany when I spoke to a grocer there. The farmer will contract a local butcher to process his animals to the customers specs and then will send those items directly to the store down the road. Same goes for Tomatoes or potatoes or whatever you want.
I looked into the rules about this in Canada and nope, not possible.
Your pigs have to be loaded up alive on trucks where they're shipped a few hundred km away in some cases, in hot trucks, some die on the way and because they died of heat they can't be butchered so they're thrown away, food waste and raising the cost of the other pigs.
Then they have to be slaughtered and processed in places where there are always food borne disease outbreaks, and now Covid on top and then are sent to grocery stores next door to the farmer. And all the while many middle men who only exist because the government regulated their jobs into existence collect money along the way and make groceries expensive relative to freer markets like in Germany.
I knew a tomato farmer and he would love to sell his tomatoes for 3x the price directly to Walmart that was only 1km away, and Walmart would love to pay 1/3 their normal price, and the end customer would love to pay 1/2 the regular price but they can't because of these useless middlemen.
Fun fact: Many vegetable farms waste up to half the food because once it falls down it's not even economical to pick it up or do a second loop to pick up missed veggies. If the farmers could triple their price and still deliver a cheaper product to the store then they could find it economical to pick up the food that would otherwise be rotten away.