The Backyard

The Backyard

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Paying the Organic Prices - It IS Worth It

My Organic Eggs post prompted a very interesting comment from the owner of Grass Fed Farms In his comment, he said, "Sometimes, then, pricing is relative to quality and a persons willingness and desire to enjoy the very best."

How aboslutely true! For years, maybe 10 or more, I've been searching for organic foods and usually cringed at some of the prices, but I paid it anyway because I knew it was very much worth the quality. Coffee, for example, will always be organic in my house (and has been for years), and yes, I've gotten used to paying $6.00 for 10 ounces of beans and don't seem to mind anymore. I listened to the wrath of hubby last year when I paid $52 for the Christmas turkey. One of the books/articles I read (can't recall which one) stated the prices will not come down until more people pay the prices and the demand increases. You will all agree organic foods ARE more commonplace than 10 years ago, and some of the prices are coming down -- but we need to be careful of that lower-price quality. Is it from agribusiness? Can you be certain it was grown from a sustainable farm? For a little more, its worth purchasing the local food. Or, if unavailable locally, paying the price to have good, quality organics shipped. Contrary to my husband's beliefs, I'm going to have to stick to my principals of paying the prices for quality food - IT'S WORTH IT!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

YES!! You are right, it is all about the price *to the individual* - what he/she personally values and wants to spend the money on. And like you said, as people buy more of a product (e.g. organic, local, etc) it becomes more readily available because the demand is there. And if it local, the more people join a CSA (e.g) the more our farmers can have the funds to expand their offerings and even more spaces for CSA shares.

You know, I think that for me at least, buying local is actually less expensive than buying in the stores, not to mention the freshness, quality, and sustainability. The CSA gives me more than enough veg/fruit from May to January for $600. If I went to the store, all the produce I'd need would be way way more than that just for a couple months. Same for local milk - it is about $3, as compared to nearly $6 for organic, and from "who knows where". Yes, in the summer there is that higher cost because of buying more to store up, but in the winter the cost shoots down.

With all that said, though, the bottom line for me is that it is the value to the individual - I won't spend money on extremely fancy clothes or other items for my home, but for food, it is where I'll put my money. Thank you for this post, and the insight :-)