carrot sprouts in the mobile greenhouse





Now that we actually have some crops up and growing (little though they still may be) it won’t be long before we’re packing things off to farmers market… which has led me to a bit more thinking about the price of food these days.  I had a few things to say about food prices and farming in a general way in this post, but how does this information relate to what we do here at Stone Free Farm?  We’re not a commodities farm business and we don’t sell our produce in the world-wide market, so we’re not subject to all the fluctuations of those global structures.  Instead we sell everything on a micro-scale – directly to our friends and neighbors – and consequently we are free to set our own prices.  Sort of.  Of course we do compete in a way with the local grocery and natural food stores – our customers are well aware of what things cost in the produce aisle – and we also have the competition of our fellow vendors at the markets to consider too.  And it’s always been really important to us that our food be affordable to everyone – just because we grow a gourmet product doesn’t mean only the wealthy should be able to afford it.  Good food is for everyone.

That said, we’re in a business that doesn’t necessarily reward those who do an exceptional job.  Sure we gain customer loyalty – and we’re very thankful for every one of those loyal customers – but just because we grow an uncommonly good carrot doesn’t mean we can keep raising our prices on it.  There’s an expectation that food be cheap no matter how tasty and healthy it is – and then there’s the point that we want it to be available for everyone.

So what’s a farmer to do?  In other professions you get a raise for a job well done.  And, well, we did go into farming knowing that we wouldn’t be getting rich off of it, but it can get a bit disheartening for farmers who work hard from season to season to improve on quality and consistency, but then find that there really isn’t the opportunity to raise prices in order to be compensated for this hard work.  So I guess I’m back to where I ended that other post of food prices… maybe it’s time for us to really start considering the real value of food.