From every $10 you spent in a supermarket, the farmer gets $1.20. The rest is transportation, distribution, and retail. While producers (and supply-side aggreg

From every $10 you spent in a supermarket, the farmer gets $1.20. The rest is transportation, distribution, and retail. While producers (and supply-side aggregators like USDA) currently have excess food they can't sell and might therefore be willing to give away for free, this would only reduce the retail price to $8.80 in this example. Intuitively, I'd think it would maybe be possible to run a truck of potatoes to some larger city for less than that. But remember that the food distribution chain is among the most streamlined and efficient structures capitalism has produced. Some overhead might fall away if you don't charge for the food, but you'd still need to do whatever processing and safety measures it involves, and giving stuff away for free doesn't mean dumping it in a parking lot.