Local food, mom & pop retail

Designating today as Small Business Saturday is a great idea, and hopefully a lot of folks will take part. Sometimes a simple trigger like this can bring about a change of habits in consumers. But legislators and state government administration need to develop some new habits of their own to help strengthen the economic viability of small businesses in our state, or we will continue to bleed jobs as these mom & pop operations fold under the pressure of market dominance by faceless, high-volume conglomerates.

On the local food side, it looks like Kay Hagan's cosponsored Amendment to shield small farmers has a good chance of passing:

The amendment would exempt small farms from much of the Food and Drug Administration regulation that's proposed in the bill. Hagan said the idea was to exempt farms that sell directly to consumers or restaurants and don't have the lengthy farm-to-table production chain of larger producers.

The small farms amendment was opposed by big food producers, and its inclusion in the bill almost threatened to scuttle the legislation. But Tester worked out a compromise last week.

The Legislature needs to focus on initiatives that not only protect small businesses, but helps breathe life into them as well. But they also need to be prepared for opposition from powerful interests, who are willing to pay to keep and expand their slice of the market.