Screw National Farmers’ Market Week — Part VI

Our little town of Veneta hosts a farmers’ market on Fridays, and I seldom go because so few farmers participate. I went this past Friday to check out the prices and struck up a conversation with a couple next to me. Turns out they grew the produce on the table that I was considering buying. Since I told them I wasn’t a fan of the farmers’ market, they said they were very interested in my input. Yeah, right.

The first thing I said was that somewhere in America a cucumber farmer is earning a living selling cucumbers at such a low price that these cucumbers were able to travel through a long logistical path and end up 12 to a jar in a vinegar solution known as pickles for the low sale price of $2.50, whereas this farmer’s pickling cucumbers were 75 cents each.

They countered, I countered, and it turned into an argument with them stomping away in self-righteous indignation. I said, “You asked for my input, didn’t you?” I left the market empty-handed.

Reasons Farmer Gives for High Prices

I’m competing against a farmer getting subsidies

I’m battling cucumber beetles and insects

It took me six hours to pick all this

The quality is better than the local market

The flavor is better

You need to decide who you want to support

Why I Believe These Arguments are Fallacious

I’m competing against a farmer getting subsidies

She claimed the cucumber farmer was getting subsidies and that’s why he could sell so low. Was she stupid or lying? Hard to know. Seems to me if you’re a farmer you would know who was getting subsidies. The main subsidies go to CCWRS, that’s corn, cotton, wheat, rice and soy. Visit Mulch for a list of subsidies near you.

But maybe she’s right. Though there are no subsidies for cucumbers, farmers receive subsidies for other crops. In June 2008 before the U.S. House Agriculture Subcommittee On Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, Robert Edwards said that he devotes 100 acres of his over 5,000-acre farm to growing cucumbers. He claims that shortage of labor, high cost of fuel and more importantly–honeybee shortage–are causing him to reduce his cucumber production to 50 acres.

Why bother troubling with cucumbers when he brought in $82,981 in subsidies in 2005 and $194,266 in 2006 for cotton, peanut, corn, etc. I wouldn’t bother with cucumbers either. Up until now he obviously thought growing cucumbers for 21 cents a pound was a lucrative income stream.

The logic behind her argument is that this farmer is willing to waste time growing cucumbers and making little or no profit off them because his other crops are subsidized. Additionally, acreage that could grow a subsidized crop is wasted on cucumber. Say what? Gosh, maybe it’s that farmer who is the true humanitarian!

Farms all over America are making a living growing conventional cucumbers and selling them for 21 cents a pound wholesale which retail for 60 cents a pound. They receive no subsidies for growing cucumbers. This farmer I’m talking to wants 75 cents for her half-pound cuke that took her five minutes to pick so she can pay her mortgage.

But I’m battling cucumber beetle

A picture came to mind of her on her back wrestling in the dirt with this beetle. Well, the conventional farmer faces the same problem. He uses pesticide. There’s an organic pesticide she can use. Or she can use row covers. A number of organic methods exist for pest control.

Is she telling me that her cucumbers cost three times as much as conventional because she’s a soil purist who won’t use organic pesticides? Is she expecting me to pay her large sums of money because she’s sitting in her garden picking these beetles off by hand?

It took me six hours to pick all this…

“Do you expect me to work for $4 an hour? I need to survive.”

There’s that “survive” word again. As I looked at the table of produce, I was aghast that it could take someone almost an entire day to pick it. Obviously, farming is not her main income-producing skill. Maybe there was some under the table as well. It’s also possible that I’m clueless to how long harvesting a small plastic bin each of cucumbers, onions, green beans and a few other items takes.

But the basic argument is that she expects a certain hourly rate for her farming efforts. That’ll be a first in farming!

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Cucumbers
• Shipment volume during April-May was down 7 percent from a year earlier.
• Prices at the point of first sale (largely grower or f.o.b. shipping point) averaged
21.0 cents per pound during April and May—down 16 percent from a year earlier.
• Market News retail prices during April and May averaged $0.60 per cucumber.
• January-April import volume was up 13 percent from a year earlier.
• Per capita use is projected to be 6.4 pounds in 2008, up 1 percent from 2007.

–from USDA Economic Research Center
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The quality is better than the local market…

“Ray’s doesn’t have good produce and I’m not inclined to drive into town.”

First off, she doesn’t have to drive into town for a cucumber. She grows them herself. That’s one of the perks of being a farmer. People pay them to grow their own food. She saves a lot of money on food. What she meant to say is, “I can charge this because the competition’s produce sucks.”

I personally don’t buy produce (or much of anything) at Ray’s, and I drive into town for more than just food, so that’s not a big selling point. But her produce here isn’t much fresher than what I buy. The local farmers are selling to the hugely successful co-op they started called Organically Grown Company that is now the largest distributor of organic produce in the Pacific Northwest. I’m still buying from the local farmer, (who is still setting the prices in this area). It’s just taking a couple extra days to get to the store.

The flavor is better…

“If you tasted this bean you wouldn’t think we were gouging you.”

So the fact that you successfully grew a bean that tastes like a bean justifies a high price.

You need to decide who you want to support

There’s the self-righteous chiding wrapped in a guilt blanket. That’s when hubby stormed off. If I bought my food at the store I’m not a good member of the community. I don’t care about my neighbors. I’m wasteful of the environment, selfish and self-serving because I’m not supporting my Veneta farmer. How dare I? I’m expected to empty my wallet to fill the farmer’s wallet in the name of good conscience.

I Got Somethin’ to Sell Ya

I’ve crocheted an afghan. It took me an entire week to do it, six hours a day. At $15 per hour plus materials, I have priced the afghan at $480. This hand-crafted afghan feels better than machine-made, will keep you warmer than conventional blankets, and it is more earth friendly. (I laid it under a full moon for a night and carefully interwove cat hairs into it).

I made this afghan with love and reverence because I care about the future of afghans. My mother and my grandmother both crocheted afghans. I’m a third-generation afghan crocheter. If you don’t buy this from me and choose to buy a blanket in town for $80 instead made by corporations that are putting afghan crocheters like me out of business, then you are contributing to the destruction of the planet. But it’s your choice. I hope you can live with yourself.