By Randy Wilde, Staff Columnist

As a community, we have the right to choose what kind of products we want to buy and where we get them; that’s consumer choice. And a Walmart superstore is not where we want to get groceries to feed our families.

However, on Nov. 22 Mayor Jerry Sanders vetoed a measure approved by City Council earlier this month requiring retailers to sponsor an economic impact report before putting in a new supercenter. A supercenter is defined as a store of 90,000 square feet with at least 10 percent of that space dedicated to nontaxable items such as groceries and prescription drugs. The report would focus on important issues including jobs created versus displaced, its effect on local wages and its effect on traffic levels. Existing businesses would not be affected.

According to Councilman Todd Gloria, who introduced the proposal, “(The) legislation does something very simple: It asks for information.” Opposition has interpreted it as a de facto ban on supercenters such as Walmart. Sanders echoed Walmart’s own protests about limiting consumer choice and preferential treatment.

First of all, if you consider a simple economic impact report a de facto ban, then you are assuming the results will turn out negatively. I agree they will. It has happened time and time again; Walmart moves in and small businesses are driven out of town. Small businesses account for the lion’s share of new job growth and keep profits earned in the local area rather than spiriting them away to a big corporation. Second, allowing massive supercenters to run the show does not increase consumer choice. We don’t want to be left with superstores as the only option to feed our families.

In a massive retail system such as Walmart, you can bet your food is not going to be fresh. It will be prepackaged, processed and packed full of preservatives. This is the health and well-being element both sides seem to have overlooked. Food quality is so basic and yet so important to everyday life. Supercenters are not the direction we want to be heading for quality food. Instead, we should look to a more positive example.

We have one right here on campus every week. Farmers markets are the solution to our health problems and an incredible tool for environmental and economic progress.

The brand new People’s Produce Project farmers market of southeastern San Diego is another beacon of hope we can turn to. It is stocked with all locally grown produce. This type of system is a much better alternative to supercenters and even traditional grocery chains. The food is fresher and healthier, which is critical in an era of skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. And they eliminate transportation hauls from producer to market, which reduces environmental impact and prices.

We should be promoting local, small-scale farming rather than relying on massive industrial farms in other states for our food. Small-scale farming is better for people and for the earth. It also acts as a stimulus to the local agricultural industry. But to fill these farmers markets with fresh, healthy, local products, we obviously need local producers.

Toward this end, the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation of San Diego approved a three-year lease of $1 per year to Project New Village on a plot of undeveloped land in the Mt. Hope area for a small farming operation. This is exactly the kind of project we need. Therefore, I urge the city council to extend this lease when it comes up for review next year and to enact further related programs. Microloans, inexpensive leases of unused land for small-scale farming, relaxing zoning restrictions and establishing community gardens would do a great deal to stimulate this new industry, benefitting both producers and consumers.

As a consumer, the most important thing you can do is support local growers by purchasing their products. This can be as easy as checking out the farmers market on campus every Thursday, or heading to one of the many other markets around the San Diego area.

Farmers markets are the best way to curb the disturbing trends in our food industry. This is the true path to consumer choice. I’d rather stroll around all the unique and local stalls at a market than down an aisle at Walmart packed with the same old processed garbage you find everywhere else. That’s my choice. What’s yours?

—Randy Wilde is an international security and conflict resolution junior.

—The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.