Market Farming

["Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

> BTW, non-organic local eggs just got upped in indianapolis to 4$/dzn due
> to commodity feed prices - 1$/dzn jump

Wow; if I could get prices like that, I COULD make a living farming. My
hens free-range, and I feed food scraps, etc, so increases in grain prices
don't affect me as much. The same with my pasture-raised beef...the cost
of winter hay is higher, but the cost of growing grass hasn't gone up (I
feed very little grain, and only to the mother cows in the coldest
weather). I
can raise my beef prices, and the extra is mostly profit.

I would think the increase in shipping costs would also benefit local
food, which doesn't travel far. It's nice ot see the true cost of food
coming out. I do much of the farming by hand, so
increasing fuel prices don't affect me much. I've watched the cost of
lettuce (shipped probably from California to Pennsylvania) go sky
high....lettuce is already one of my biggest money makers, and I can
double my price and still charge what the supermarket does. But will
people pay? I've noticed the inventory of lettuce in the store is half of
what it used to be, presumably because people aren't buying at that price.
In theory this should all work to our
advantage.

Lynn Wigglesworth
Peasant Farmer
Tioga County, PA