A central Arkansas farmer was on Capital Hill, as the 2012 Farm Bill was brought to congress. The bill is to support local food systems by bringing food grown locally straight to consumers through stores and in schools.
"The kids can have access to affordable healthy nutritious food in their daily lunches and the farmers would also benefit at the same time by being able to sell it while they have the influx of product," says Pauline Thiessen, Ozark Natural Foods.
Thiessen says during the summer when farmers get their most produce, they would freeze it then give it to schools in the fall. She also says with farmers being able to sell their products directly, the money would stay local creating jobs.
"For every dollar that you spend on local produced goods and services and in particularly this case farm goods, about 70% of that roughly goes back to the farmer."
Thiessen says over the past years farmers market has grown dramatically in the region. And Ozark Natural Foods has seen more products from farmers in their store.
"So we went from over 102,000 to over 130,000 in just products that we purchased from our local farmers and all those dollars are going back to our farmers," explains Thiessen.
For more information on the 2012 Farm Bill visit this website