Organic Prices

[mom2manyboyz]

I went to the grocery store today (Dillons). I normally know which produce I'm buying organic, so I don't normally look at conventional prices. Today I did for the purpose of this post.

I was after carrots, celery, lettuce, and milk.

The small bag of organic baby carrots was on sale: $1.00.
The conventionally grown bag of baby carrots in the same size was $1.50

The bag of organic celery was $1.49.
The conventionally grown bag of celery was $1.51

The organic lettuce tray was $3.00
The conventional bag lettuce of the same size was $2.49.

The organic milk was $3.79 per half gallon.
The conventional milk was $1.99 per half gallon.

Buying organic I spent $9.28
If I had purchased non-organic I would have spent $7.49, or $1.79 less.

[SageMother]

That is a general trend in stores, as far as I can tell.
I believe it is due to shelf life issues, which may never be resolved.

[mom2manyboyz]

None of the products I listed above have less of a shelf life because they are organic. Typically "shelf life" being shorter applies to packaged food. The organic produce listed above lasts just as long as it's counter-parts.

Some of the produce was actually cheaper organicly grown. The milk was the largest organic expense.

[jazzgrrl]

Why do you think this is? It seems to me from my shopping experience that there will be a little different price for organic produce but with dairy products or meat, it is significantly more.

[mom2manyboyz]

Well, this is purely speculation on my part, please don't take this as fact, but rather theory.

It seems a lot of the extra cost involved in raising organic produce is in the initial preparing the soil or in “transitioning to organic." The soil has to have a lot of organic materials worked back into it to produce quality soil and it is labor intensive. Once the soil is organic, the annual labor and work involved may be no greater than conventional farms.

As for milk, conventional dairy farmers use growth hormones to stimulate the cows to produce more milk. This works quite well, they turn into milk producing machines. They look very unhealthy though. All utters, and skin and bones everywhere else. This is unhealthy to people for a variety of reasons, the greatest reason being that the growth hormones are passed on to the milk. You drink them when you drink conventional milk.

Obviously, an organic farmer that isn't shooting up their cow with growth hormones to boost production will not be able to yield as much milk per cow and the cost of organic milk will be higher.

[tater03]

I would have to agree. I think that a lot of it has to do with how it is grown on the farm and that the cost is just passed down to the shoppers. I am finding though that our local store is starting to have more sale prices on organic products.

[Carl]

I can concur with the explanation given for the organic milk being more expensive. My cousin used to raise chickens without giving them the growth hormones but they took so long to reach a decent commercial size that they would have eaten him out of business. His price per pound of chicken was therefore higher than those raised otherwise and he simply could not compete, at least not on price alone.

[berlinlife06]

The only way that organic can compete with the tradicionally grown produce, is if they do it in a massive way, and for that as noted, it is necessary a very big investment upfront. So, it goes again into a cycle.

[Buzz]

I also agree with the explanation about why the organic milk is expensive compared with milk with hormones and after I read about Carl's cousin and the chickens I can imagine how hard it is to be part of the organic business.

[SageMother]

Originally Posted by Carl

I can concur with the explanation given for the organic milk being more expensive. My cousin used to raise chickens without giving them the growth hormones but they took so long to reach a decent commercial size that they would have eaten him out of business. His price per pound of chicken was therefore higher than those raised otherwise and he simply could not compete, at least not on price alone.

Yield is another important factor. With fresh vegetables, farmers may see smaller crops when using organic framing methods. Their overhead doesn't change as they still work the same amount of land, getting fewer, smaller fruits or vegetables from each plant.