That's the question my friend and I were debating last night. We weren't wondering where they went or when they are. The frequency and prevalence of the farmer's market isn't an issue. In Chicago there's one almost everyday and in almost every area of town.
What we were debating is the substance of the markets' themselves, namely the deals. It used to be they were a place to get farm fresh goods in the city at a fair price. It seems I remember a time when the market would come to town and have fruit ripe close to bursting and the vegetables, hearty and plentiful, all at a reasonable price.
Lately, it seems the farmer's market has become a place to look, but not shop. The market's selection has been limited and expensive, two things a grocery shopper does not want.
Now maybe I'm waxing poetic, remembering back to a time in youth when summer lasted forever and nothing cost more than a dollar.
Or maybe my memory is getting long. It's long enough to remember when gas was three dollars a gallon...oh wait that was just last summer.
How about long enough to remember when milk was three dollars a gallon...now wait that was just last month.
It's not hard to deduce that with all this inflation that the farmer is feeling the pinch. But a price of a bushel of corn is at an all time high. Between the flooding in the Midwest and the high demand for alternative fuels like ethanol, farmers are looking at fields of gold almost literally.
Now I realize that this new found liquidity doesn't necessarily impact the profit margin of an organic berry farmer. Smaller farms still face the economically daunting task of bringing their crops to market. Fueling the harvesting equipment and staying in the black could prove tricky in a summer where oil is expected to top one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel by Independence Day.
So what does that mean for the us, the shoppers?
Two things really...
1. It means we have to look harder than ever for a deal and the
weekly farmer's market might not be where you find it. As much
as I love my open air market, a stroll may be the only thing I take home from
it.2. It means we have to pay more attention to what things cost, where
the deals are and what the best deal is. If you're at the farmer's market
and need a pound of green beans for dinner that night, even if they are a
little more than what they cost at Jewel, get them. The small
expense is worth the time spent for a special trip.
It helps me to think of myself as a small business owner, running my home is my business. If financially I am able to help out a fellow small business owner like the farmer at the market by all means I'll do it. In these economically uncertain times (dare I say the "R" word) we all need to rediscover good old fashion stick togetherness. I'm all for helping the little guy, but I also have a business to run.
In the end, what my friend and I concluded was that we'll still go to the farmers' markets, if for nothing else the people watching and to support local growers. But the days of a dollar buying the world may be long gone, at least for this summer.
A summer I hope, that at these prices, doesn't last forever as a younger me once thought it did.
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