Buy Local, They Said
In 2020, Maryland told itself it would buy local. The General Assembly passed House Bill 1488, setting a goal: 20 percent of the food the state buys — for its prisons, its universities, its agencies — would come from Maryland farms and watermen.
By fiscal 2024, the state's own report card was in. Out of $97.7 million in food spending, Maryland bought $238,920 from certified local farms and fish providers. That is 0.25 percent. One quarter of one percent.
The prisons are the worst of it. The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services — the state's biggest food buyer at $39 million — spent $39,012,084 on food and bought $7,055 from Maryland farms. That is 0.02 percent. Two cents on every hundred dollars.
And when the legislature passed a bill to fix the machinery, the governor vetoed it. Then the legislature overrode him — 127 to 8 in the House, 43 to nothing in the Senate. Buy local is the most bipartisan idea in Annapolis. It is also the one nobody can seem to execute.
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