Eat Local Foods, Grow Small Farms
| Wed Jun. 4, 2008 4:58 PM PDT
It's not just for elites anymore. A survey of Midwesterners finds that even average food shoppers are willing to pay a premium for locally grown food. They'll pay as much as a third more if the food comes from a small local farm rather than a corporate farm. The study from Ohio State University, published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, shows that more shoppers are willing to pay for ripe local food—suggesting small farmers might be less efficient on the production side and still manage to be more profitable on the revenue side by selling at the premium price.
Shoppers were surveyed at 17 Ohio locations, including seven retail grocery stores, six on-site farm markets and four farmers' markets. They were presented with two product options. Both were baskets of strawberries, but they were presented under 80 combinations of price, freshness, farm location, and farm type. Data from 477 surveys revealed the average shopper was willing to pay 48 cents more for local strawberries. Shoppers at farm markets were willing to pay almost a third more, 92 cents above the $3 base for a quart of berries. Freshness was also important. Farm market shoppers were willing to pay 73 cents more for newly-harvested food and retail shoppers 54 cents more. The researchers tested interest in supporting small versus large farms by naming one fictional berry producer "Fred's" and the other "Berries Inc." Shoppers in grocery stores were willing to pay 17 cents extra for berries from Fred's, and farm market shoppers were willing to pay 42 cents more.
Listen up small farmers, boutique farmers, disenchanted farmers, your day may be coming (again). Many of us want fresher, tastier food grown carefully and closer to home. Rising fuel prices mean cheap cherries from Chile won't be cheap forever.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments
ironically, for the purchase of local produce to achieve critical mass in a free market society, it has be economically profitable. is local destined for the same fate as fair trade and organic? being co-opted by abstract regulations that risk pushing the real source of fair trade and organic to the margins? will local become a corporate codeword that local farmers can't afford to embrace (literally)? oh, in an ironic and tragic world it seems you're always damned if you do and damned if you don't.
I dont know, I went to the farmers market in Ann Arbor and the produce was fresh, local, and reasonably priced.We went to some farm stands around Michigan and I was pleased with the quality and the price. Also in Pennsylvania Dutch country, wondreful to buy Amish produce at a good price. However, here in Connecticut, you go to Farmers markets and you wonder if their planning to send six children through college on the returns from their table. I work in back of a Organic Dairy and occasionally I'll go into their store and the prices are just ridiculous. They want eight dollars and change for a peice of cheese as big as your thumb. They have a organic farm up the road that sells "free range heitage turkey" at 6.50 a pound. So thats a 20 pound bird for 130 dollars. It seems like their aiming at the monied elite.I dont know, in my mind if the local farmers want to get to a wider audience their going to have to get their prices down.
In this kinder gentler, more self-sufficient way of life brought on by high oil prices, people are finding that they no longer have to enslave themselves to the corporate Gods to gain access to the food supply. They can grow some and sell some at a large enough profit to survive, free of the chains of high pressure consumerism and still take time for family, poetry, and maybe even some good old fashioned fishin', with a pole of course!
Great text! We should find new ways of life, use smaller cars, eat healthier food, at the same time spending less energy.
This is why I was really surprised when I saw the ad - just below this wonderful text - of "Endless Pools".
THIS IS TOTALLY NON-SENSE!
How come MOJO could mix on, a single page, a pro-local-food, pro energy-efficiency text and an ENERGY WASTING TOY like that???
One should be exercizing on his/her bycicle or jogging, instead of wasting scarce, fossil-fueled electric power to pump tons of water on an "endless swimming pool"!!!
I hope someone from MOJO top ranks reads this comment and take some action on this.
The final message is: "OK, eat local, save energy, then go swim on your energy-hungry treadmill pool, so we get some extra ca$h from our advertisers".
Shame on you, MOJO...
Post new comment
MoJo Comments: Send Us Your Feedback
We changed our spam software to better filter comments. Should you encounter any issues, please let us know.
