I am standing in front of an open cooler reading label after label. “Growth Hormone Free”, “Raised Without Antibiotics”, “Vegetarian Diet”, “Natural” branding all cover packages of bacon. Which one is best? Where is the quality? I notice the pack weights of bacon and for the first time in my life I realize they are all 12 oz instead of the classic pound. Strategic marketing combined with shrinkflation has me spending $8 on my chosen pack.
As spring approaches I find myself having to make a similar decision as the heads of these multinational corporations with the price of our CSA shares. The costs of production have increased ahead of the share price as labor, materials, and utilities. The farm is spending more for each unit of crop than ever before.
Upon cooking the bacon I marveled at how it has been sliced to the same width as the handle of my fork. Slightly overcooked for this reason I was surprised more by how little flavor this meat had. It tasted like a greasy chip. There was a time when if you had always shopped at the grocery store you might not know the difference between mass produced and home grown food. Now, it seems impossible to not notice the lengths businesses are going to reduce quantity and quality of products.
The reason I have chosen to raise prices instead of reduce quality is because of the value our products provide beyond the vegetable itself. Each crop contributes to our weekly diets and feeds our soil in a cyclical process of regeneration.
Practices like leaving roots in the ground, minimal tillage, cover cropping, and mulching provide improvements in the soil. Much of our profits are reinvested back into the ground they came from to grow fertility rather than degrade.
The same could not be said for a conventional package of pork. That “Vegetarian Diet” is likely an intense ration of GMO soy and corn scientifically formatted for rapid growth in confined spaces. While we see the quality of our products improve over time, the opposite is true at the commodity scale where convenience has been traded for health.
We also provide jobs to local folks, most of whom are just starting out in agriculture. Teaching has become an integral role of our farm as each employee gets dropped into a living system that functions from diversity rather than simplification. You wouldn’t believe the focus that must be paid to weed a bed containing 3 different crops, each at different growing stages. These practices can be a management headache but allow us to increase production in our short growing season, protect crops without spraying for pests, and improve soil health.
When food is grown in these ways, the quality and nutrient density is outstanding. These are both core values that we will continue to provide even if that means a higher cost of production. They are what separates our farm from the rest.
This week prices will remain the same, however by next Monday we will be raising them about 10%. I wanted to communicate this to you because you need to know. We have always worked to keep our CSA shares accessible through access programs like the Vegetable Connection, payment plans, and bonuses on the veggie credits. To continue that ethic, a heads up is necessary for people that have been considering but have not pulled the trigger.