The cost of produce: it is time to reframe the issue!

It is a gorgeous day in Central Texas! I spent the morning walking with a friend around Townlake in Austin and stopping by the Austin Farmer's Market to pick up some meat and veggies for the week.

My friend pointed out (several times) that the food at the farmer's market is expensive and used this as a reason not to pick up a couple things that she would have liked to get. I very rudely suggested that she quit calling the food expensive and to instead call the food beautiful.

What I really meant was:

I understand that in this current economic time it is important to be careful with one's funds and to make the dollar stretch. However, when it comes to the price of food, it is not that farmer's market food is too expensive, the real issue is that grocery store food is too cheap.

Grocery store food is too cheap because grocers buy food from huge growing and processing companies that use chemical fertilizers and insecticides to grow their monoculture crops and do not (in many cases) pay a living wage to workers.

Farmer's market food is a fair price to farmers so that they can live and work off the land and provide us with sustainable food systems by supporting biodiversity on their farms.

So what I'm saying is...

Let us reframe the idea of cost for our produce! If we are able and willing to support local food, then understand that the money we are paying to the farmer provides a living wage to the farmer. It is the grocery store produce that gives us the illusion that growing food is cheap and is a major contributor to the loss of family farms in America.

(Don't get me started on government subsidies for corn, wheat, and soy and the impact this has on making processed food cheap and grocery store fruits and vegetables - in comparison - quite spendy.)

Reframing the issue has the potential to change the culture of wanting our food cheap to wanting the growers of our food to earn a fare wage. This, in time, may actually yield the result of local food being cheaper! How? By helping the government switch its priorities from giving money to the multinational corporations in the form of subsidies to revitalizing the family farm and the communities they support.

While our budgets may not allow for buying local foods at different times in our lives, changing the language and thought around food costs may ultimately influence the way we vote, how we interact with others, and hopefully a larger cultural switch that will make the local choice the affordable choice for the future.