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["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT gmail.com>]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Lynn Wigglesworth
<lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com> wrote:

> In this area, people aren't willing to pay more for fresh produce. I ran
> a Farmers' Market, and most people came looking for a bargain. We were
> right across the street from the supermarket, and everyone knew the
> vegetable prices. We couldn't get a cent more than supermarket prices.
> By the end of the first season, all my vendors dropped out because they
> weren't making enough to warrant the $5/week vendor fee. What I don't
> understand is how factory farm in California can afford to ship a tomato
> across the country and sell it for less than I can sell mine.
>
> The same is true of eggs...if the supermarket has an $.89/dozen special
> on eggs, I was expected to sell my free-range eggs for that, also.

We now have a vigorous farmers' market in Springfield, and a small
store a few miles north of town in a town that is a high-income
bedroom community. Very few sell eggs. A farmer who had a decent-sized
flock that he was maintaining just to sell to friends got shut down by
the state for some reason or other (I have not kept up with the law on
this stuff, but I understand that private milk sales are now also
illegal). I don't have a flock right now, but when I did I could
pretty much set my price. I sold to fellow workers at my agency, and I
could sell however many eggs I had for $3. I'm not sure I will do it
again until I retire (which may be sooner than later as my formerly
halfway decent agency is now being run by a bunch of little Hitler
wannabees).

The state has evidently gone into high gear on making it harder and
harder to sell anything but vegetables. I never had trouble selling
fresh birds because I had the Amish do the slaughtering and packaging
and they are USDA inspected. I added the processing fee onto the price
per pound. A few people winced when they found out what their chickens
would cost, but they signed right up for chickens the next year after
they'd consumed round one.

I'm fortunate to live where there is a a pool of people who know what
food should taste like and have the money to buy food they know will
have flavor.

Marie