A Levy on Eating

So, in my email today, a message from the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (I have no idea how I ended up on that listserv). I'm told that the CFF's "vision document" proposes "A Small Charge on the Retail Sale of Food to pay for Environmental Services". Now, admittedly, they haven't worked out how they think this should be done. But the idea, so Elbert van Donkersgoed, "has the potential to be a powerful bridge between farmers and consumers -- a strong enough bridge to balance the emerging economic clout of those very few large food firms that control food between the farm gate and the dinner plate."

It doesn't quite make sense to me. Adding a levy onto a final consumer product really just underscores environmental consideration as an afterthought. To me, it becomes an excuse for not paying attention to production practices. If we indiscriminately put a levy on it - whether it be a highly processed Kraft product or a locally produced organic vegetable - it's saying, we're taking care of the environment from the consumption end, we pay to feel good about it. If consumers are very much behind this (89% of the focus group participants in the article, apparently), wouldn't it make more sense to go with tighter labelling laws? If I'm willing to pay more for environmental considerations, wouldn't that mean that I'd be more likely to purchase the stuff that was grown, processed and marketed in accordance to that - the hormone-free free range, the organic, the local, the minimally refined...? That way, I'd have a better idea of what my food dollar supports than if I paid a levy on twinkies...