I used to hold people who patronized farmer's markets as those who were out of touch with reality, and too mushy. You know, THOSE PEOPLE who whine too much and protest futilely.

However, this paints the choice not in terms of Me vs. Dumb People, but Me vs. Inefficiencies. So much money goes to upkeep (marketing, distribution) as opposed to production.

Suddenly I feel like buying from a farmer, to close that divide.

Even if the cost of grain going into beer doubled, the manufacturer would only spend 0.18 per bottle. Hmmm...

after rereading I see was .12 per six pack so manufacturers would be looking at 2 cents more per can!

good article

further evidences that fact that we need to support our local farmers' markets

These are numbers chosen purely for effect, not a true reflection of economics. The 0.92/lb a farmer gets for 'Top Sirlion', he also gets for the skin and bones and everything else. 0.92 is the live cattle (whole enchilada) price.

Why not go for it and compare the price of filet mignon at market ($15/lb) to what the farmer gets on the hoof? That would really prove your point Kiki! Isn't propaganda fun?!?!

Receiving 20% of the retail price is actually common for producers of most consumer goods that arrive at retailers via distributors -- whether you're talking about agricultural products or t-shirts. Distributors typically add on the costs for whatever packaging they provide and then double the overall cost to arrive at the price at which they sell to retailers; and, then the retailers double that price when selling to consumers. What is so surprising about it? Nothing against helping farmers but that is simply the way it works if you want to be a "mass market" seller of goods.

I _am_ actually quite surprised! I thought it was much less than this (ie, 4-5 cents), I had no idea they made so much money. 20 cents on the dollar is very significant considering the sheer volume of food.

Given that farmers receive HUGE government subsidies on their crops, how much of our tax dollar do they receive?

Given that farmers receive HUGE government subsidies on their crops, how much of our tax dollar do they receive?

Ironically, the biggest beneficiary of our government's subsidies is not the farmer at all. Using the picture above, it should become clear just who benefits from a subsidized, and therefore suppressed, price of farm products (corn, etc.).

The groups that benefit the most are the ones buying the crops from the farmers and whomever else touches the product before it gets to market. The vast majority of the money (the 80% figure above is probably close to correct) goes to all the massive industrial food companies that turn simple farm products into all the refined garbage you see in the supermarket.

Ummm... Hold on a second. The USDA retail food dollar averages all farm revenues, from corn and soy to top sirloin, and the percentage received by the farmer for various products can vary considerably. Only small percentages go to things like packaging and transportation. The largest share goes for labor, and that is not farm labor but manufacturing labor--those folks who run the machines that make things like taste like food and look like food but are not. The cool thing about buying real food directly from the farmer is that you are buying real food--and ensuring that the farmer gets the whole dollar. But real food is the biggest benefit to the consumer.

These are numbers chosen purely for effect, not a true reflection of economics. The 0.92/lb a farmer gets for 'Top Sirloin', he also gets for the skin and bones and everything else. 0.92 is the live cattle (whole enchilada) price

Actually farmer are paid for the 'dressed' price of cattle, as opposed to the 'live' price or on the hoof as it is called. That is the price after all the skin, hoofs and other loss items are cut off. Or 'on the hook' price as it is also called. So the current price today is about 1.05 per pound of product.
Were you are correct is that scrap meat sells for 1.00 a pound and top sirloin sells for 10.00, so the price average the farmer get for top sirloin is closer to 3.00 per pound and the price for scraps is .30 per pound.

Well i am a commodities broker and follow this stuff everyday. Trust me, there is no need to feel sorry for the farmers now. With this whole ethanol boom they are able to sell their crop for a whole heck of a lot more.

It doesn't matter how much they get off the lays potato chips, they just sell the potato the rest of the business is up to lays. They don't put the money into the marketing or the employees or anything like that. That business is up to Pepsi, the farmer doesn't care what they do with the crop after they buy it.

There was a time where we had to subsidize the farmers or add tariffs because it was so hard for farmers to compete. Times are different now, not only are the farmers making a hell of a lot of money on the higher priced crop, but the efficiency is getting better, better seeds better fertalizer etc. To top it all off the farm real estate has actually been doing pretty well.

This is freaking stupid. You could buy corn (for oil), salt and potatoes from the farmer. Good luck making potato chips.

The milk is the closest thing to an appropriate comparison and the farmer gets 40 cents to the dollar for it. And even milk goes through processing before reaching you:

http://www.pauls.com.au/information/information.cfm?/section/3/subsection/22/#s3

I like how you almost exclusively have items that need to be processed and don't list any fruits or vegetables.

I get the point you're trying to make but you're doing it in a pretty dishonest and misleading way.

Useless as this comment is, I shall write it regardless. In response to the above commont about government subsidies, farmers do infact recieve them, but they are mainly not to grow the crops on their land. The government does this to try and keep the price of said crop from bottom out due to a saturation on the market. I live in the south and many of my families friends are farmers. They struggle everyday to make a living. So yeah, go ahead that think that its alot of money, but the farmer has to buy the seeds to plant, purchase the equipment to plant, grow, maintain, and harvest the crops, pay for diesel to run the equipment and pay to take the crops to a mill or gin. Many farmers have to pay to lease much of the land they farm on and if a farmer has a horribly crummy year, and drought or floods come, then they loose money and have to borrow heavily on banks to stay afloat in the worl.

Can someone explain this graphic to me. 19% is listed as "farm value." The next 38% is listed as "labor." What exactly do these two values mean.

Keep in mind that $.20/LB that goes to the farmer needs to pay for all the expenses of growing that crop. It is not as simple as throwing some corn seed around and watching it grow. I grew up on a family farm producing wild rice, Pork, Beef, and the supporting crops for the animals. Making money was about as much luck as going to a casino. We usually on average would make enough to make the low-middle poverty range. The only reason I got to eat decent and not ramons noodles is that we were able to process our own meat and grow a garden. If it wasn't for the love of farming my Dad had, he could of made more money working as a greeter at Wal-Mart.

I don't know about you, but all this talk about chips and beer is making me hungry and thirsty.

Go Farmers!!!

Me too! Give me a coke and a smile.

Go Farmers!!

Excellent Point! All farmers should have the opportunity to greet at Wal-Mart! Unless farmers are too good to do that.

On another issue, farmers plant corn all over Texas and it fails year after year. We all know they just want to get some of that govt cheese!

Well i am a commodities broker and follow this stuff everyday. Trust me, there is no need to feel sorry for the farmers now. With this whole ethanol boom they are able to sell their crop for a whole heck of a lot more.
quote]

While Adam the commodities broker is correct that prices are high right now and farmers are doing better than previous years, he is looking at it from a view of 20,000 feet and has no real idea of what life is like for an American farmer today. The truth is that most farmers scrape by on an income that is much less than the average income the rest of us enjoy. It is very hard for farmers to survive in today's market. While govt. subsidies have reduced farmer's risk (bad years, weather, drought), it has stripped them of their control and influence in the market. It's created a system where the price of food does not reflect the cost to grow it. The only way to make money now is to grow in scale and buy more land to increase the subsidy from the govt. This is driving out the small and medium sized farmers. While subsidies may have made sense in the past, there many other ways (technologies, financial products, etc..) to protect farmers that were not available in the past. What

Well, I'm a large farmer (weighing in at around 320-325 lbs.) and I take offense to Mr. Anonymous! I haven't stripped any farmsers - after all, I ain't gay or nothing!

Support your local farmer market!

Shut up. You are just a stupid fat farmer.

My uncle used to deliver produce to the markets in Boston. He said the middle men paid pennies on the dollar to the farmers for their produce. Basically they would mark up the price by 400% without even touching it.

My aunt used to sleep with a lot of farmers and she said that their members were 400% smaller than "average" men. Probably not true, but I'm just saying.

Oh yeah, don't ever listen to unclues or people that reference middle men - words to live by.

I grew up on a farm and my father still owns and operates a beef, hay, and corn farming business. Anyone who tells you farming is a large profit business is severely misinformed. Almost all small size farms (read under 1000 acres) scrape by. Yes ethanol has run up corn prices but that doesn't come close to off setting all of the other costs. We're talking about keeping up several barns, countless machines, and don't forget about taxes for all that land (yes we get a break on taxes but land = money either way). We actually had to sell off our dairy cows because the cost to feed (just the grain) was higher then the milk coming in. Don't forget the cost of medicines, the price of fixing a car when a cow decides to go into the road, etc. I've lived in poverty all of my life and watched my grand father sell off acre after acre of land and still be over 1million in debt. Its a tougher life then most will ever know and to think of it in any other way is foolish. You can go on all day but the fact is there are less and less farms and more and more to feed, do the math. Support your local farms in anyway you can.

My Family owns a vegetable farm in Southern Ontario. We grow Carrots and Onions, and have been for over 80 years. This past year we were making $2 a bushel (50 lbs) for onions. The cost of growing onions was around 3.5 to $4 a bushel. Yet when I went to the grocery store that was selling our freshly packed Onions the price was .69 cents for a pound. Thats $34.5 for 50 lbs or a bushel. Around $7 a bushel is paid to the packing houses that bag and process the product. It's pretty sad when the 3 big grocery stores are making tons of money building massive stores and on the other side of the spectrum farms are rapidly dissapearing not just because of poor managment but because we can't afford to put seed in the ground or fill our tractors with diesel. So what about farms, they can just get paved over with subdivisions right? Well if your local farms and food supply is wiped then you rely on imported product, that works right? Till theres a food shortage and then theres no food cause no local farms. With less money going into your local farms, the farmers have to rely on cheaper methods of growing, which turns into poorer quality crops which don't sell. Farms can't expand instead sell off land to developers, and can't afford to pursue more environmentally safer methods. I would love to go organic and not use commercial pesticides but if we can't even afford to produce conventionally how can we go in any other direction.

Thats just what i think. Please buy locally grown food! Your dollars and cents go a long way into helping us grow your food

How do you figure that transportation, packagaing and energy fall under the marketing bill? Also, is it any surprise that labor takes the most? People aren't growing, buying, moving or selling food to get their warm fuzzies. It's to put food on their own table and a roof over their family's head. What is the source for this, anyway? I can photoshop a dollar with information, too and who knows what I could prove to you.

Mr. Foster -

there is a link to http://nfu.org/issues/agricult...mers-share

at the end of the article. The linked page cites USDA stats.