MORE BLOGS ABOUT STIMULUS AND FOOD
The Wall Street Journal’s Louise Radnofsky reported this weekend that the stimulus bill has so far yielded 22,000 government contracts worth $12 billion — and that most of these contracts are going to big business:
The reported contracts include millions of dollars for big-name food, drug and auto companies. Del Monte Foods Co. and Hormel Food Corp.’s Jennie-O Turkey unit are providing supplies for food pantries, and so are private-label firms such as Lakeside Foods. Drug makers GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Merck & Co., Novartis AG and a unit of Sanofi Aventis Group are supplying extra vaccines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. are selling hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles to the General Services Administration for the federal fleet.
Obviously, there might not be a ton of small businesses ready to sell hybrid cars and provide flu vaccines. But it would seem that you don’t need to rely on Del Monte and Hormel to keep food pantries going. The Obama administration has been pretty silent on “food politics” issues. Using stimulus money to help local food producers would be a nice, first step.
