You won’t often catch me shopping at Walmart. But when our local Staples closed and I needed office supplies, that’s where I ended up.
Out of curiosity, I wandered into the grocery section. And there it was: rows of “organic” produce at astonishingly low prices.
It made me stop. If people care only about the word “organic” on the label and the lowest price, why would they come to a farmers market or a farm store?
On the surface, a clamshell of organic lettuce from Walmart and a head of lettuce from Red Shirt Farm don’t look all that different. That clamshell likely crossed three time zones before you open it, picked days ago and bred to hold up in transit, not for taste. Ours was harvested yesterday and went straight into the cooler, ready for your plate.
Red Shirt Farm lettuce, beyond organic.
Walmart organic lettuce.
Most of us tell ourselves, “It’s just a head of lettuce.” Every one of them keeps one food system alive or the other.
Buying direct from a farmer keeps about 80 cents of every dollar in the grower’s hands. In the mainstream supply chain, it’s closer to 15 cents. Step back a century and the picture is starker: nearly half of every food dollar once went to farmers. Today it’s less than 8 cents.
When food looks cheap, someone else is covering the cost: the farmer, the soil or, eventually, our own health.
Here’s a small test for the week. Pick one food you’d like to taste fresher, garlic or eggs or ginger, and buy it from a local farm instead of the supermarket. See if you can taste the difference.
Two lettuces, one counter. Come compare in the farm store. More from the farm is in Field Notes.
