farmers market bargains.........Not...

Just stole this off a british forum thread where someone was asking why stuff was so expensive off the farm....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afY4v0y4fL4

No remarks from the thinskinned, undiesinawad croud please.....

Was never entertained like that at any farmers market I have been to.

Well at least they're happy cause they don't have much to sell. I always wonder about some of the roadside stands we have in Texas. Always claim to have fresh farm produce selling bananas and pineapples. I don't think we grow them in Texas.

Put this comment on the thread.......... Some of them brits have a hard time with my people skills too :roll:

Sad part is, for every crook that will do as you are talking about, there are 3 fools that will keep him in business.........
If you have an outstanding product, then price accordingly but fair.
If someone does, then hats off to 'em. But, if someone has two animals to butcher that are the same quality and sells one to a butcher for his shop or the supermarket and butchers the other to sell in his shop at 2 or 3 times the price, then he's no more than a slimy crook. Local family does eggs. Sells delivers to plenty of mom & pop stores and sets up at the twice a week market in the town center. All the same eggs from the same chickens. Mom & Pop stores put a little profit on them and still sell for an acceptable price. Market ones sell for a little extra for some reason, but they have a small shop right next to the chicken house and sell the eggs for twice what they sell them for at the market. Same folks, same chickens, same eggs, and no transportation costs or table/tent rent costs.
Again, hats off to the honest folks when you can find them. Usually the clean shaven folks cause they can look at themselves in the mirror long enough to groom themselves.....

Dave2 === you just have to use Common Sense, which most don't have, like you,, just don't go if you don't like the price...

(quoted from post at 05:53:31 09/25/11) Dave2 === you just have to use Common Sense, which most don't have, like you,, just don't go if you don't like the price...

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joey.you gotta start lookin somewhere else for your comments....

cant really agree with the quality of the goods portrayed but 3 times the price hits it on the head! bill

The fact of the matter is there must be people willing to pay that price right off the farm, otherwise they wouldn't be asking that price. As long as you are not advertising the product as something different or special, I don't see the problem. The consumer obviously thinks it's a fair price and if they wanted to pay less then they should shop around.

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective, Dave2- The farmers market sellers try to get as much as they can for their product, and sell all they can through that channel- but wholesale the rest, because getting fewer $$ is better than throwing the unsold product away.

Who the heck is this joey ?????
nice picture of you Dave2

Have any of you really done farmers markets? My wife just got into that....not me! But I can tell you it's a lot of work if you are concerned with getting the freshest product on the table. This summer my wife was up at 6 and in the garden picking and then washing veggies to be at the market 8 miles away with freshly picked stuff. She sold more than most of her competitors because most were honest and were telling people "well these were picked last night" while she was able to say "this morning". Plus you go and take care of enough garden to sell plus put up your own stuff. It all boils down to getting what you pay for.

When she ask me about doing this I was very scetable......but she made some money at it to the point it paid for the tillage and planting, marketing and turned a small profit. Plus because of this she sold 4 of my pasture raised pigs (I raise a few feeders every year) at better prices than I thought I would get! Small guy like me has to make money where he can.

Rick

Billy, I hate to tell you this but yes we have bananas in Texas. I have a banana tree in our yard that produced bananas every year until this year. The freeze we got last winter knocked it down but it has come back but no bananas this year. Their will be more again next year though.
We are in far South TX. near Brownsville.

I think that there is more to farm stands and farmers markets than meets the eye. Many people buy to get fresh or organic or something like that. My wife chooses to shop just at the big store where most of the food comes from 2000 miles away. It is difficult to pick up a local or regional farming publication and not see an article that addresses in some way efforts towards Community Supported Agriculture or farm stands or farmers market as part of the total picture necessary for the family farm to make a "go" of it. Many people just want to support their local business and neighbor. I tend towards local businesses because they are community and where would we be if we we all had to work for the big companies that pay as little as they can once the small ones are gone. Here in the US large vegetable farms are so mechanized that they even PACKAGE on machines out in the field. Hundreds of dairy farms in my state are now just a few dozen. Sure the price of milk is up right now but inputs for 2011 are up 10.3%. It's very tough to make a living at any farming when competing against the huge factory farms. Rural municipalities almost always have lower tax rates and most people prefer rural or suburban areas to raise families. So where will we be when all the farm land is growing houses and roads and schools, when all the farms have sold out? maybe we will wish that we had given local agriculture a little more support.

Don't know what the price is if I don't go! I'll keep making wishes to Santa too.

there is a gowing segment of the consumer puplic that is willing to pay a nice premium for just picked fresh vegetables where they can meet the growers over factory farm stuff a week old.If they're willing to pay 10X what it costs in the grocery store why would anyone else care?

(quoted from post at 11:05:29 09/25/11) there is a gowing segment of the consumer puplic that is willing to pay a nice premium for just picked fresh vegetables where they can meet the growers over factory farm stuff a week old.If they're willing to pay 10X what it costs in the grocery store why would anyone else care?

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Here the markets are the same of just a little higher than as the stores.

But we get 100% of the money.

Rick

good for you and your wife, so glad to hear a nice story like that,being a gardener myself .I know she worked hard

Farmers should be the richest people on earth because they produce food.Raising vegetables takes hours of back breaking work in the hot sun.Losses to bugs, disease and weather are a big factor.Weve had the onions fail 1 year,peppers fail the next.Last year it was the potatoes.As diesel fuel goes up food prices will follow.Farmers markets exist because a farmer cant sell enough in his home town.My grandfather traveled many miles with a horse and wagon to sell his strawberries and vegetables.We have farmers that have to travel many miles to the city to sell produce.They do sell for a lower price at home than they get at farmers markets.