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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 22, 2011 12:56:04 GMT -5
Joseph do you raise your food prices accordingly as food prices in the grocery store rise? Or do you according to your costs? Or do you raise your prices? At what point does it become to expensive to produce food? I just can't imagine there being some sort of solution, even if it doesn't involve the use of paper money. I'm very much driven by supply/demand. When I have only a little bit of a popular item I raise prices. When I have a lot of something and so do all my neighbors I lower prices until it sells. I don't intentionally comparison price with the grocery stores... But people want to pay Walmart prices. And then they want lower prices still because they are getting it straight from the farmer "so there aught to be a discount." My basic inflation calibration is, "How has the price changed on a 1 pound bag of store brand mixed frozen vegetables?" So this year I aught to raise my prices 13% based on that measure. I also figure that a silver dollar aught to buy a 1/2 bushel basket of vegetables. I should raise my prices 60% based on that measure... My biggest expense is property taxes... (I have to grow 500 dozen ears of corn on my very small farm just to cover the property taxes.) My second biggest expense is other taxes... They eat me up. I feel very little incentive to make money knowing that half of everything I grow will be taken by the tax man to support people that are too lazy to come out to my farm to pick what I would gladly give away. And then to add insult to injury, the taxes I pay are used to give subsidies to big agriculture. So besides taking the taxes from me they are then used to harm me. I think I will scream now.... AaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhHH! I have little influence over the tax man. The only thing I can do to limit what is taken from me is to grow less food, or to charge lower prices for it. I'll gladly let a whole crop rot if it means that I avoid getting bumped up to the next higher tax bracket. I think I will scream again.... AaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhHH! I can easily control how much I pay for seed (grow my own, or swap). Fuel, irrigation, and equipment are relatively minor costs. There are way too many regulations to ever consider hiring someone to help. |
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Post by honeydew on Jan 22, 2011 13:37:37 GMT -5
I'm very much driven by supply/demand. When I have only a little bit of a popular item I raise prices. When I have a lot of something and so do all my neighbors I lower prices until it sells. I don't intentionally comparison price with the grocery stores... But people want to pay Walmart prices. And then they want lower prices still because they are getting it straight from the farmer "so there aught to be a discount." My basic inflation calibration is, "How has the price changed on a 1 pound bag of store brand mixed frozen vegetables?" So this year I aught to raise my prices 13% based on that measure. I also figure that a silver dollar aught to buy a 1/2 bushel basket of vegetables. I should raise my prices 60% based on that measure... My biggest expense is property taxes... (I have to grow 500 dozen ears of corn on my very small farm just to cover the property taxes.) My second biggest expense is other taxes... They eat me up. I feel very little incentive to make money knowing that half of everything I grow will be taken by the tax man to support people that are too lazy to come out to my farm to pick what I would gladly give away. And then to add insult to injury, the taxes I pay are used to give subsidies to big agriculture. So besides taking the taxes from me they are then used to harm me. I think I will scream now.... AaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhHH! I have little influence over the tax man. The only thing I can do to limit what is taken from me is to grow less food, or to charge lower prices for it. I'll gladly let a whole crop rot if it means that I avoid getting bumped up to the next higher tax bracket. I think I will scream again.... AaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhHH! I can easily control how much I pay for seed (grow my own, or swap). Fuel, irrigation, and equipment are relatively minor costs. There are way too many regulations to ever consider hiring someone to help. Wow. I have always given away extras - veggie starts, seeds, this or that bit of produce that we have way too much of, like last year's two 40 foot rows of swiss chard that just kept going and going and going (What was I thinking!?!?). I will swap with neighbors and friends too. I do sell the eggs when we have extra, and yes, I have been confronted with the attitude that my prices should be lower. It works well, they won't pay my price, I won't sell my eggs for less. Even the price of eggs have gone up in the last 3 years from $3.18 for 18 eggs to #3.89. I sell my farm fresh eggs for $3.50. But this year we will be market gardening too. There's only one other older couple who produces for the farmer's market. If not for the issues with food prices, pricing would be easy. My thoughts were that one would price similar to the competition, accounting for significant differences, in this case being growing without chemicals and synthetic fertilizers, and providing a wider variety of choice. With one grocery store in town, and knowing their prices (pretty high for fresh produce), I know that locals would be getting a value while paying the same prices as the grocery store and the other local producers. But, I still can't really wrap my head around this idea of having the food there, and having people who need to eat it, and the disconnect in between. I don't know what WalMart prices are like, but I bet they are cheaper than our grocery store. HAHA. Milk costs almost $6 a gallon here, I know that in the city it's usually $3.69. But what you said really gives me a new view. I will have to think this one through.... |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jan 22, 2011 14:38:14 GMT -5
I'll gladly let a whole crop rot if it means that I avoid getting bumped up to the next higher tax bracket. I think I will scream again.... AaaaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhHH! Burn it in the terra preta pit. I hate the days I spend running in the screaming circle. I really want to give you some sage advise... some excellent words of wisdom... the best thing I can think of is to play some backgammon with the kids and take a long nap. It really helps me. |
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Post by synergy on Jan 24, 2011 3:40:37 GMT -5
Joseph, maybe you can offer an extra crop to a Gleaners Society or other charity or church and get a tax credit?
I wonder what kind of tax breaks religions get themselves ?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 24, 2011 4:38:38 GMT -5
Joseph, maybe you can offer an extra crop to a Gleaners Society or other charity or church and get a tax credit? Last fall I called 5 food pantries, and several churches. None of them were willing to provide labor to pick free food. I donate thousands of pounds of food a year to the food pantry which is left over after the farmer's market, but it saddens me, all the able-bodied people that the food pantry feeds and they can't even help pick the food. My thoughts were that one would price similar to the competition, accounting for significant differences, in this case being growing without chemicals and synthetic fertilizers, and providing a wider variety of choice. I do not get a premium for growing organic, or for the higher quality and fresher taste. Maybe that's my problem for marketing wrong, or for not asking higher prices. I do however get loyalty and reciprocity. I place a lot of value on reciprocity. There is a market 100 miles away where I could charge double or triple, but I'm not willing to drive that far especially when more than half of those miles are through very congested urban traffic, and not when all I'd get from that market is money. I think it's outrageous that milk here sells for less than $2 per gallon. Milk is a waste-product of making butter and butter making is huge here. And I often buy chicken for $0.49 cents per pound, and eggs for $1 per dozen. I just can't figure out the economics of those transactions. Green bell peppers are around $0.59 each year round. I like pricing summer squash by the each, i.e. 5/$1.00 whether they are tiny, or huge... That way poor families can feed themselves very well on the huge squash, and the well-off families can get the tiny delicate squash. I also make a seconds basket while picking and while at market. I'll put a $5-$8 price tag on it with the provision that they have to take everything in the basket. That gives me an outlet for things that I would not otherwise sell or donate to the food pantry, and it gives the thrifty shopper a lot of really nice vegetables at a great price. |
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Post by garnetmoth on Jan 24, 2011 10:49:27 GMT -5
That is a shame about gleaners. Yikes. Even just to get a van full of people out on a weekend or something, its not like you are asking for folks to work on hands and knees for a week for a meal?!
A friend of mine who market gardened for her first official year last year is garden manager at another farm this coming season! Im looking at a CSA/Workshare. best is they have acres of wheat, rye, corn, and black beans, so I am asking since I grow some veggies, if I can "bank" my work hours and get a sack of grains and beans....?
The winter farmers market is in the building next to a food pantry here. This pantry had a sewing project to make fabric bags for the pantry recipients. they now have a table at the winter market for donations. I will try to expand my herbs this year and donate those, as I usually have more than we need, even for gifts. I will ask them about seeds or starts....
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Post by synergy on Jan 24, 2011 19:18:31 GMT -5
That is true, I have never in my life heard of a food bank proposing to get people shipped off to a farm to work a day to help in exchange for donations and the fact we work hard, outside year round is why we are not lining up at the food bank. How appreciative do you think anyone is if they have neither paying for the food nor done the work ever? It is one thing for families to need a helping hand but when you need help to get a crop in before a storm or you take a loss or have unexpected expenses, none of them are going to be there helping you out and that just seems very wrong.
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Post by castanea on Jan 24, 2011 21:31:05 GMT -5
And then to add insult to injury, the taxes I pay are used to give subsidies to big agriculture. And they are helping Domino's Pizza sell more bad food. Arrrrgggghhhh |
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Post by castanea on Jan 25, 2011 0:30:25 GMT -5
"Grain production shortages around the world and high grain prices are calling for American farmers to plant every acre they can this spring, the Wall Street Journal reported. Farmers will need to sow an additional 10 million acres to boost supplies of several crops. Supplies are expected to drop to 15-year lows for corn and more than 40-year lows for soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Corn is trading at about $6.40 a bushel and soybeans at more than $14 a bushel, the Journal reported. Although the prices may dampen demand somewhat, low global supply will require the largest U.S. planting in a decade. Analysts are calling for 327 million acres to be planted, which will require converting animal grazing pastures to cropland, sowing marginal lands, in some cases planting an acre twice in the same year and planting under questionable weather conditions." www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110124/OPINION01/301249975 |
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jan 25, 2011 8:18:19 GMT -5
And then to add insult to injury, the taxes I pay are used to give subsidies to big agriculture. And they are helping Domino's Pizza sell more bad food. Arrrrgggghhhh Now, to be fully honest... I kinda... sorta... not in a happy way mind you... like Domino's pizzaBesides, the delivery guys love getting eggs, cookies, bread, etc. for tips! So... like... they can't be ALL bad, right? |
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Post by synergy on Jan 25, 2011 19:05:36 GMT -5
I would think cookies and eggs and the like would be a great tip too.
I recently got this great load of blueberry bushes from a grower who had planted his fields and had stock left to disperse 3 year old 3 foot high bushes for $2 in gallon pots. I got a bunch for myself and two distant friends whom are horse breeders and participate in barter and seed exchange etc. But I also offered to pick up some for my neighbours and nearby friends , all of who have acreages and not one was interested in them at that price , picked up and delivered to them free as i saw as being neighbourly. These were all nice people , bright and evidently not concerned about growing anything edible. It just astounds me. I mean so little investment of time, money or energy needed for fresh berries annually and they are not interested in any? sigh.
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Post by steev on Jan 25, 2011 22:05:40 GMT -5
Joseph, I wonder what livestock you keep or could. That's my plan for excess veggies, turn it into meat. I do agree with many about the logically inexplicable lack of interest many people have in producing or even gathering food. I can't believe how much money my landlady spends on food supplements and booze, both of which she's sure are making her feel "better". She'd really like me to veggie garden in her yard, in raised beds that she'd let me build out of my pocket, but only if they were caged so squirrels and other rodents couldn't disrupt things, and so cats couldn't do what cats do do; I just don't understand non-gardeners.
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Post by castanea on Jan 25, 2011 22:14:21 GMT -5
I would think cookies and eggs and the like would be a great tip too. I recently got this great load of blueberry bushes from a grower who had planted his fields and had stock left to disperse 3 year old 3 foot high bushes for $2 in gallon pots. I got a bunch for myself and two distant friends whom are horse breeders and participate in barter and seed exchange etc. But I also offered to pick up some for my neighbours and nearby friends , all of who have acreages and not one was interested in them at that price , picked up and delivered to them free as i saw as being neighbourly. These were all nice people , bright and evidently not concerned about growing anything edible. It just astounds me. I mean so little investment of time, money or energy needed for fresh berries annually and they are not interested in any? sigh. Not surprising. Crazy, but not surprising. People will however spend energy to stop trees from fruiting. I was listening to a local gardening show on radio this last weekend and almost half the show was people complaining about how to keep pears from fruiting on their fruitless pears and plums from fruiting on their purple leafed ornamental plums. |
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Post by mjc on Jan 25, 2011 23:22:07 GMT -5
Not surprising. Crazy, but not surprising. People will however spend energy to stop trees from fruiting. I was listening to a local gardening show on radio this last weekend and almost half the show was people complaining about how to keep pears from fruiting on their fruitless pears and plums from fruiting on their purple leafed ornamental plums. A very easy way...find something useful for the fruit...then they' quite bearing as soon as your now favorite recipe requires them. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 25, 2011 23:23:17 GMT -5
Joseph, I wonder what livestock you keep or could. That's my plan for excess veggies, turn it into meat. I would love to run pigs in the garden after the fall harvest and before the snow falls heavy. I bet they would sure clean up the weed roots. But alas, the fencing and barn necessary to keep a herd of pigs would be very pricey. I feed lots of seconds to the neighbors chickens, but then I think about my garden's economy, and wonder if I wouldn't be better off making worm food. |
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