UDJ 8-8 Column
From CFI
Pintos and Porsches
Attention Ukiah families: Historic downtown Ukiah is the place for family fun on a Saturday morning. Our summer mornings are comfortable and beautiful, there are lots of unique shops to explore, and the farmer’s market is packed with tasty treats for everyone, plus music, events, stories and friendly people … together it’s a recipe for sweet and savory memories.
Three vendors joined the market last week. Mendocino Lavender (www.mendocinolavender.com ) had its, fire delayed, return to the market. New market member Dear Meadow Farm from Willits arrived with some fine produce. Also, the craft section got a bit wilder with Paleotechnics (www.paleotechnics.com ), which makes products using the arts and technologies of early peoples.
Tomorrow’s Farmer’s Market features local student music. The SPACE Yokayo Taiko Drummers will get us moving at 9:30. At about 10:30 we will be treated to keyboard performances by students from the Ukiah School of Music. In between, at 10 AM, Jini Reynolds provides a cooking demonstration featuring Aqua-Rodeo’s (www.aqua-rodeofarms.com ) premium, fresh Arcata Bay oysters and Ukiah City Councilman Benj Thomas will host a children’s story reading in the park. To celebrate “National Farmer’s Market Week” some of our vendors will be wearing festive, silly hats … why not wear your own and join the fun.
Last week I addressed the fallacy that independent, local sources are always more expensive than large chain stores—particularly for the things you would really want to buy. But, we both know that things at those ginormous corporate stores sometimes do have very low prices. What then? For example, what if a pound of locally grown tomatoes costs $3.20 (or $4.00 for an heirloom) when the national chain has tomatoes from elsewhere for $2.50 or $3.00?
It isn’t always best to put the cheapest thing you can find in your mouth. Don’t you agree?
We certainly don’t assume that cheapest is always best with other products. For example, we don’t presume that a Pinto is preferable to a Porsche just because the Pinto has a lower price tag. Why then might we leap to the conclusion that the lowest price tomato is the better deal? The quality and safety of what we feed ourselves and our families would seem to be as important as what we drive or the TV we watch.
Moreover, the range of qualities in tomatoes themselves (including things like nutrition, fleshiness, flavor, freshness, size, texture, water content, color, and shape) is as great as the range of variation among automobiles or other products. The range of social and environmental differences based on tomato choice is equally profound.
If you consider more variables you may end up determining that the local tomato is the better overall deal, even if it does have a higher price (which is often not the case). For example, the local tomato may provide a higher value in terms of keeping a job local, preserving local open space, providing better taste, doing less harm to the environment, having superior freshness, having a personal connection with the grower, delivering better nutrition, improving homeland security and/or a host of other good things you might care about in addition to price.
If we want diverse local agriculture and local food sources, farmers need to be able to make a living growing and delivering food. They need to be able to pay the local rent for land, water, infrastructure and inputs, and be compensated for the incredibly hard labor it takes to plant, tend, pick and deliver food. Not only in good years, but every year.
Given such factors, a higher price for a local tomato may a be realistic and fair price and also the best value. Talk it over with some of our local farmers and I expect you will come to agree that they are pricing things reasonably given what they provide. Its not the local produce farmers who are driving around in Porsches while the rest of us are in Pintos.
Americans are spending only about 10% of their income on food. That figure has declined steadily from about 25% in the 1930s. Our per capita portion of income spent on food is less, by far, than other countries. Perhaps it is time to reprioritize what we eat.
Certified farmer’s markets are in Ukiah from 8:30 AM to noon Saturday and 3-6 PM Tuesday on School Street at Clay Street and in Alex Thomas Plaza and in Redwood Valley on Sunday from 9:30-1PM at 8920 East Road in Lion’s Park. To learn more about our Mendocino County Farmer’s Markets, go to http://mcfarm.org/. Have questions about the Saturday Farmer’s Market? Contact me at 462-7377 or cratty@comcast.net
