The Price is Wrong
Photo by Tom Schierlitz/Getty Images
Ecogoddess-librarian Umbra Fisk explains why buying organic is more expensive.
Just one of the reasons:
In the United States, a very small percentage of income goes toward purchasing food: less than 10 percent in 2004, compared with 23 percent in 1929 (and 24 percent in modern Mexico). You probably know that the federal and state governments heavily participate in and financially support U.S. agricultural production. I’ve been told this is a legacy of the Depression, sort of an “as God is our witness, we’ll never go hungry again” attitude. Prices for our food are low and consistent because of strong government involvement in the form of subsidies, grants, paying not to produce, buying surplus, supporting technological development, and tax incentives. Look back at my scintillating discussion of oil subsidies, which describes the various ways government can ease the path of any industry. We pay twice for our food: once to the IRS and once at the supermarket. In short, the cheapness of food is a delusion.
Previously, we discussed just some of the ways you can eat your organic veggies heartily and affordably. Except celery. Because I think celery blows chunks.
Update: Check it, prices of organics are falling.
kevin said,
May 23, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Important point, but I disagree about celery.
budak said,
May 23, 2006 at 10:51 pm
my duck hates celery.
For all the cries of freemarketeers, foodstuff is possibly the least ‘marketised’ commodity, with prices that hinge greatly on public policy and interest group hangovers. The lower prices we pay fail to take into account the risks of crop/breed homogeneity, the external costs of intensive agri-food culture and the loss of control and autonomy by local cultures and economies to economists who prize absolute efficiency and profit-maximising agrifood groups.