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FacebookPrices at farm markets could be up 20 to 30 percent
> Will you go to farm markets this year?
> Ben Sutherly writes about agriculture and rural life at DaytonDailyNews.com/downtoearth
Sunday, June 01, 2008
DAYTON — Consumers likely will see significant price hikes for fruits and vegetables this summer at local farm markets as growers pass on a portion of their higher costs.
Prices will likely be up 20 percent to 30 percent for local produce, said Bob Jones, president of the Ohio Producer Growers & Marketers Association.
Extras
Despite some of the heftiest increases consumers have seen in years, farmers are going to make less, Jones said. That's because some farmers' input costs have soared, with some fertilizer bills tripling in just the past year, he said.
Coming off his best year since the founding in 1980 of Bayer's Melon Farm Market just east of New Lebanon, John Bayer said locally grown produce will be competitively priced. He noted that freight costs have soared for trucking fruits and vegetables from California and Mexico to local supermarkets.
Bayer said he'll raise his prices 5 percent, but said he's paying 30 percent more this year for everything from seed to fuel and fertilizer. Unlike grain farmers, fruit and vegetable growers don't receive crop subsidies, he noted.
Bayer said soaring demand for locally grown food should also help sales at his family's roadside market of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and crenshaws, which Bayer calls the "Cadillac" of melons.
"People are starting to realize what we do as produce growers in the state has some real value," Jones said.
Quality and yield both look promising, Jones said. As of Memorial Day weekend, 68 percent of the state's strawberry crop was rated in good or excellent condition, with 31 percent in fair condition and 1 percent in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Ohio field office.
A late freeze didn't hit local fruit farms this year like it did last year, when many local crops were decimated by early April temperatures in the upper teens that followed an unusual warm spell.
This year, May's cool, wet weather is delaying by 7 to 10 days the harvest of early-season crops such as asparagus, strawberries, peas and green beans, Jones said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7457 or bsutherly@DaytonDailyNews.com.
Comments
By Riverdale Ghost
June 5, 2008 2:15 PM | Link to this
Organic … non-organic?
Someone who’s starving will eat anything including garbage. And, someone with “insufficient funds” may do so, too, or be starving. With thousands of jobs gone (never mind the likes of the homeless), insightful little chats about “organic is better for you” have little place in today’s society. Of course organic is better for you; so is uncontaminated water and air.
By OrganicToo
June 3, 2008 10:09 AM | Link to this
Greed from who? From the fertilizer and pesticide companies most likely. If the farmer is not organic and use products like RoundUp, then they are at the companies’ mercy. As non-organic food prices creep closer to organic, more people will choose organic since the price issue will no longer be a concern. I’ve seen non-organic cheese prices jump heavily, up to a dollar in some places, but organic prices only up 10¢ - 20¢ if at all.
By organomaniac
June 2, 2008 10:31 AM | Link to this
Price increases should reflect market conditions and costs of production. Organic farming should be nearly entirely unaffected by recent fuel and fertilizer cost jumps. Indeed, if anything, costs can be relatively speaking lower after several years of farming organically, since each year the soil becomes more complete and less affected by nutrition requirements of plants. Greed and opportunity are “fueling” this price jump.