[Market-farming] How do you determine market/wholesale price

Beth Spaugh lists at rhomestead.com
Wed Apr 1 10:44:36 EDT 2009


Maybe NewFarm will reply and give accurate current information. I THINK the
price project is dormant. I cooperated in it several years ago. The entry
wasn't hard at all, but finding time at market to see what prices were was
my challenge. But, I THINK the organic price project was grant funded, along
with the wonderful columns for new farmers that they had, and the grant has
ended, without longterm funding to keep it up.

Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY
Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com
Garden fresh vegetables, organically grown, and pastured chicken, duck, and
geese
 
"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." -
Wendell Berry
 
"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances
Moore Lappe
-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
clearviewfarm at bluefrog.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:42 AM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] How do you determine market/wholesale price

Gosh, Rivka!  I didn't know they (NewFarm) were looking for input, in
addition to providing output.  It seems to me that if the website were
appropriately constructed, it could be easy for growers to input while
checking out prices.

Kurt Forman
Clearview Farm
Palmyra, NY 14522

--- organic87 at frontiernet.net wrote:

From: Road's End Farm <organic87 at frontiernet.net>
To: Market Farming <market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] How do you determine market/wholesale price
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:47:56 -0400

Yes, the New Farm farmers' market price site was great while it lasted. 
I think they had volunteer spotters doing some of the reporting. I 
don't know why they quit doing it, but a lack of enough reporters does 
sound like a very possible explanation.

I suspect much of the problem is that, to be really useful, the 
information all needs to be updated frequently; and, during market 
season, however simple you make it, many farmers just aren't going to 
get to this extra chore. Is there any way to get this done perhaps as a 
class project, set up so that a number of different schools could 
participate? It needs to be done in quite a few different places 
though, some of them rural as well as big cities, and in various parts 
of the country; prices in, say, Manhattan will have only limited 
relevance to even rural New York, let alone to, say, rural North Dakota 
or Texas where not only the pricing situation but the season will be 
different.

A thought -- maybe only farmers who contribute can access information? 
That would increase the posting of information; but would also be hard 
to work, as some markets start much earlier than others and growers may 
not yet know what their prices will be but will want to access 
information from earlier markets to try to decide this; also, how often 
would it be necessary to post in order to get new info? Some people 
have some new pricing info almost every week, as they do a lot of 
different crops; but others may grow only a few things and have prices 
set for the year on everything, so not be able to do frequent updates.

And it would still have to be *very* easy to post -- including from old 
computers using odd browsers.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale

On Mar 31, 2009, at 1:57 PM, John Hendrickson wrote:

> This would be an excellent service.  Rodale/NewFarm had just such a
> system a few years ago that collected prices from various farmers
> markets around the country.  The system fell apart, however, and my
> understanding is that growers did not have the wherewithall (i.e. time)
> to follow through on the reporting.

>
> John Paul Endicott wrote:
>>
>>     Thanks for all the great info on market prices!   I'm working on
>>     our farm's pricing as well as costs per unit.   Would a national
>>     and/or regional online pricing survey/list be of help to people.
>>     I imagine a simple website where farmers can log on and input the
>>     prices they are charging for different produce- there would be a
>>     checklist for different variables like growing conditions, farmers
>>     market, wholesale, heirloom, etc...   the numbers could be
>>     compiled and accessible via regional maps/forums.  Would small
>>     farms benefit from such a resource?
>>


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