How much "value added" is there? Say, to something like wheat.
This website gives a price today for organic wheat at $10.50 (US) per bushel, which is roughly 27kg of wheat. Which is about $390 per tonne.
A few days ago Kara bought 1kg of organic flour for $4.50 (CAD)
Just imagine if the farmer got $4.50 per kg - that's $4,500 per tonne. Or, about 10-11 times as much as they are getting wholesale.
What happened to the wheat Kara bought? Well, it was milled, obviously; it was while flour so it had the bran and germ removed.
The other thing is, that same website lists the non-organic price of wheat - about $3/bushel cheaper. $3 for 27kg of flour.
Why is organic bread 50% more expensive than conventional bread? Certainly not because of the price of the wheat - which is the organic bit!
Someone is making a tonne here. And it's not the farmer - organic or otherwise.
This is probably not enough evidence to prove that "organic is a (financial) con" - there are scales of economy, but really... nobody has integrity, they are all just out to maximise profit, and "organic" seems to mean "middle class, well-enough off, can afford it" - it's just a lifestyle brand. It shouldn't be - it should be something everyone can choose to buy not based on (much) price difference.
Don't get me wrong - market gardening *is* expensive because of the labour cost, because labour is expensive here in Canada, in the UK (unless you get freebie interns, at roughly the cost of 1/3 a paid worker on minimum wage).
But the larger companies that have organic running along conventional.. ugh. Premium product, premium profit.
Did I mention I want to grow my own? ;)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Walden
A quote from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" (available for download as an audiobook at LibriVox or in many text versions at Project Gutenburg):
"Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe"—and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we never need read of another. One is enough."
Today.. I'm reading too much news, and find I don't have much of anything useful to occupy my mind.
"Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe"—and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.
For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we never need read of another. One is enough."
Today.. I'm reading too much news, and find I don't have much of anything useful to occupy my mind.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Seeking Farmland
This is energising. While I was on Juniper Farm last year, 3 people who were doing a huge bike tour came and stayed a night or two, not long after I first arrived.
After much cycling, and some soul searching, it seems like two of them at least have found just what they need (see link).
It's energising because of the possibilities I see forming for me/us.
All I "need" is a couple of acres of ideally flattish land and I can, assuming I put in the hard work and have some financial sense, earn a modest living growing vegetables.
That's what I want! Sure, I can take sideline work that'll pay much better, and I probably will do, but to at least work outside 3-4 days a week, for a good part of the year.. heaven!
We are considering our options (I more than Kara, she's happy just being - I envy her!!). There are a couple of plots of land not *too* far from civilisation, er, Ottawa and Kara's family - $20 - 40k for 10-15 acres, which in truth would be plenty.
Or, there is a family friend's 90+ acre plot near Perth.
The other promising option is an Ecovillage in the forming near Lanark, which has much that a bare plot of land does not - an impressive woodworking shop not least. It does not, however, have much in the way of flat land... but we'll see.
Exciting possibilities for the future! And, clearly, possible - not just a pipe dream! Hurrah!
After much cycling, and some soul searching, it seems like two of them at least have found just what they need (see link).
It's energising because of the possibilities I see forming for me/us.
All I "need" is a couple of acres of ideally flattish land and I can, assuming I put in the hard work and have some financial sense, earn a modest living growing vegetables.
That's what I want! Sure, I can take sideline work that'll pay much better, and I probably will do, but to at least work outside 3-4 days a week, for a good part of the year.. heaven!
We are considering our options (I more than Kara, she's happy just being - I envy her!!). There are a couple of plots of land not *too* far from civilisation, er, Ottawa and Kara's family - $20 - 40k for 10-15 acres, which in truth would be plenty.
Or, there is a family friend's 90+ acre plot near Perth.
The other promising option is an Ecovillage in the forming near Lanark, which has much that a bare plot of land does not - an impressive woodworking shop not least. It does not, however, have much in the way of flat land... but we'll see.
Exciting possibilities for the future! And, clearly, possible - not just a pipe dream! Hurrah!
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