| Saturday, April 11, 2009 |
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Smaller Farms = Higher Prices?
By Diana Hsieh @ 7:23 AM   
[Crossposted from NoodleFood.]
Why is food purchased from local farms often so damn expensive? I recently ran across two interesting essays on the topic via the blog Food Renegade, both focused on livestock.
First, in Unfair Fare, part-time New York farmer Bob Comis argues that the problem stems from a failure on the part of many small farmers to take advantage of economies of scale. Instead, these farmers tend to rely on the willingness of some not-so-bright folks to pay exorbitant prices for locally-produced food. Undoubtedly, many consumers do need to be smarter shoppers.
Second, in Why Local Food Is More Expensive, farmer Joel Salatin argues that the high prices are largely the product of massive government controls. These controls are not merely ill-suited to the workings of the small farm; they also entail fixed costs that burden small farms far more than large farms.
Whether you will ever buy food direct from a farm or not, I heartily suggest reading this second article. The inanity, burden, and expense of these government controls on farmers is worth glimpsing in its concrete details. It's not a pretty picture.
Notably, while these two explanations for high prices of locally-produced food differ, they are not mutually exclusive. However, in the long run, the government controls over farms are clearly far more significant than the poor judgment of some farmers and consumers. The market can and will weed out inefficient farms via competition over time. In contrast, government controls can only be remedied by a massive cultural and political u-turn toward free market agriculture. Given the general confusion about and hostility to free markets today -- and given that large farms often support such controls as a means of suppressing their competition -- that u-turn will be no easy task.Labels: Government Idiocy
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2 Comments:
One of the things Salatin has mentioned is that small farmers generally can't butcher animals on-site. All the meat I buy from the farmer's market is butchered off-site by another company. That has to contribute quite a bit to the cost, especially when you factor in shipping the animals.
I've actually been to Polyface and walked around. It's pretty neat, although I was there in winter so I didn't get to see the chicken mobiles. He had the chickens in hoop houses. They looked pretty content although they were clearly pulling each others' tail feathers out-- a sign of stress. His meat and eggs are reasonably priced.
Absolutely. One of the reasons local meat is so viable here in Colorado is that there are local slaughterhouses. Imagine if you lived in a state (or entire region of the country) that didn't have any slaughterhouses. And if you don't have access to one, the cost of setting up a USDA-approved inspection facility is considerable: http://www.fa-rm.org/blog/2008/12/abolishing-usda-inspection-laws.html
There is a farm near us that raises heritage poultry and their prices are really high. I would like to buy from them but I can't afford it. We can get beef, bison, elk, and pork locally raised and all reasonably priced. The heritage poultry farm has an on-site slaughterhouse, but the cost of USDA inspection probably raises it considerably over and above the cost of producing heritage breeds, which sometimes grow more slowly or have less meat.
80-90% of the slaughter in the country is handled by just 4 companies. The number of slaughterhouses also went down 30 % in a decade.
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