Kathleen Merrigan, Williams class of 1982, kicked off the 2012-2013 Log Lunch season speaking about her role as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After reminiscing about her days bartending at the Log, Merrigan polled the audience to illustrate her point about misinformation as a major obstacle to developing local and regional food systems. For example, most audience members expected a case of soda to be more expensive than the basket of local fruits pictured in Merrigan’s PowerPoint. The fruits were actually the less expensive purchase, and the audience’s response demonstrates the popular fallacy that healthy, local foods are too expensive. Also, most audience members expected subsidies to be the USDA’s largest budget item. In fact, subsidies are a small part of the budget, while 72 percent is dedicated to nutrition assistance, the effort to increase access to healthy foods.
Merrigan cited a dearth of young farmers as the number one challenge for local food production. To address this issue, the USDA has developed credit, insurance and extension services to assist young farmers. Merrigan also explained that local food has benefits beyond the nutritional, asserting that, “Local and regional food systems are an economic engine for the creation of jobs.” On September 8th, Merrigan was awarded a Bicentennial Medal, an award for distinguished Williams alumni.