Are Farmers Markets a Good Deal?

Many of you know that prior to joining academia I worked for 25 years in agriculture...a great career and personally and professionally rewarding...but wow there is a lot of work that makes you feel old quickly!... However, before I ever thought of starting my own company...my wife and I worked for three summers at Farmer’s Markets in Fresno...going out each Thursday or Friday and load up my van with fruit from my in-laws farm...and on Saturday morning arrive with my young bride at the Vineyard Farmers Market ...and we would sell hundreds of pounds of farm fresh peaches, nectarines and plums...great tasting fruit full of aroma and juice and color...usually at .59 or .69 a pound...and make the astronomical sum of $150-$200 per week...hard to believe that one week of selling peaches could just about pay our rent in 1981!...

...These sales kept us “in groceries” for the first three years of our marriage, until I began to work full-time in the growing and wholesale fruit industry. It was a great experience of dealing face-to-face with consumers, watching them enjoy our fruit and get a good deal in the process...But over the years, I noticed a significant change in Farmers Markets as I visited them in many towns...were they really what they purported to be?

...After a recent experience with two San Diego Farmers Markets, I have concluded that much of the time they are not a good deal for consumers...the quality of produce sold in proportion to the price charged is grossly unbalanced...and often I find the quality...particularly in fruit more so than vegetables...marginal at best and often actually cull fruit... leading me to conclude after several years of observing these markets...that often I believe that products are not in reality what are being portrayed to the consumer...not a good thing...


...An example of this is tree fruit that I see sold at Farmers Markets portrayed as being local grown. For those of us in the industry, we know that peach trees have a nearly impossible time to grow and produce fruit in southern California. (How many of you have seen these scrawny little trees around San Diego with peaches the size of cherries?) The reality is that we are in a tropical climate and most decidious trees need at least 800 hours each winter of sub 40(F) degrees to be able to produce, and we just don’t typically get that much cold weather here...



But in several conversations with “Growers” at these Farmers Markets, they tell me as they dump boxes of fruit out of boxes originating in Central California how they are simply recycling cardboard from the San Joaquin Valley and hauling empty boxes hundreds of miles to the south. Laying aside the economics of hauling empty cardboard, even if it is free, when empty cardboard boxes worth .50-.75 each are just as easily available in the immediate area it just doesn’t make sense.

...From my experience much of what I have seen is actually cull fruit that is legally packed by legitimate growers 300 miles north of San Diego, sold to someone for the going rate of about $5-$6 per 25# box...and then dumped into a box or basket here and sold as “local grown” for $2.50 a pound typically...that is a profit of over $55 on each box made upon the hard work, risk and labor of the actual grower...like my buddy Vernon Peterson pictured below...one of the best men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing...and if you want to talk real organic...truly from tree to table...contact Vernon at http://www.abundantharvestorganics.com/...


...I also have grave doubts about much of what is presented as organic fresh fruit...To an experienced eye, organic peaches are fairly easily able to discern...but I think I am seeing “organic” fruit being dumped out of non-organic boxes, which is to my understanding a violation of the organic certification laws...and when I have engaged in conversations about their growing practices (not revealing my own experience) with these peach “growers” I am usually underwhelmed by their lack of knowledge of the products they sell...I do not believe that all of them are being deceptive, but a significant number of them appear to be something they are not to the consumer...and I think it is worse in fresh fruit than in vegetables...organic vegetables are much easier to grow than organic peaches, plums or nectarines...

...This was not the Farmers Markets of 30 years ago, nor was it in the spirit and intention of those brave growers who sought alternative markets for their produce. There was a very close connection between the growers, vendors and products...But as with most things that grow popular, abuse usually follows...and I fear that has happened to many Farmers Markets...regretably...

What to do? Ruth and I have tried in vain over the past month to buy good quality watermelons and corn at local markets, but to no avail...day in and day out the best produce for the money in this area is...Henry's...and with the going rate for fresh summer corn is 3 ears for $2 at the Farmers Markets... at least two local stores have been selling it in the range of 4-5 ears for $1, way under the Farmers Markets...The quality? Outstanding!... And if it advertised as organic, with much regret, I have concluded that I have much more confidence in the store being truthful than I do someone who scrawls “organic peaches” on a piece of cardboard, stands back, and watches the consumers line up.

Boom Deeyah!

So I guess that I don't have enough going on in my life...but a couple of months ago my wife and I started Portuguese lessons...now that is something easy to do at my age!...and I have much more respect for people who try something very new later in life...no, no getting a puppy...but you know, like having triplets...skydiving...traveling worldwide...chainsaw juggling...because it is really hard!

...now I don't really have a good track record in this area...because there is not much I remember from a couple of years of high school French...as the only sentence I can remember is..."Do you want to play basketball?"...pretty good, huh?!?...your tax dollars at work...my apologies to all of my Clovis High instructors...for me it was kind of like coaching T-Ball...you just keep putting the ball on the stand for the kid...hoping they will eventually hit it...closest I ever got was hitting the rubber stand...wait!...they didn't have T-Ball when I was a kid...not invented yet...anyway...

...so what I have learned so far?...that it is better to do such things like language studies as a kid...like playing T-Ball...but if you do attempt this later in life..it is important for you to recognize how you learn...for me language studies is similar to doing a puzzle...trying to connect words and thoughts and images in my head...and it is very gratifying when you complete something...like a sentence saying...ummm..."Do you want to play basketball?"...well, in Portugal it would be soccer...but you know what I mean...

...but I think the point holds for all of us in business, education, parenthood, etc...figure out your learning style...for my bride it is much different...she wants to construct words and sentences like she is building a Mercedes-Benz...precise, perfect, well-crafted, beautiful...

...but for me it is more like building a Corvair...quick, less pain, less precise...and having a tendency to blow up and catch fire once in a while...

...so today...get up off your little hiney and get out there and do something!...think of a way of improving your company tomorrow..making someone's life a bit better...cooking a new dish...water skiiing...selling Avon...or learning Portuguese!

USPIGS?

I just returned from several weeks in Portugal, which is my sixth trip in the past five years. These trips have allowed me the opportunity to visit many towns and regions outside of the two dominant cities of Lisbon and Porto, and spend time with a variety of Portuguese citizens. It is an ancient country, from its Roman ruins to splendid palaces, cathedrals and castles, and it should make any American realize how short our own history is.

Today, as a peripheral country of the European Union and broader global economy, Portugal is at a crossroads. Kenneth Wattret, the chief euro region economist at BNP Paribas in London stated in April 2010 that ”The reason we’re concerned about Portugal is not because its public sector debt ratios are excessively high; it’s more that the Portuguese economy doesn’t really grow.” This small seafaring country which once controlled much of the world, dominating the trade routes to Japan, India, Africa and South America, is now the fodder of economic and political pundits, being labeled one of Europe’s “PIGS” (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain), a poster child of European government mismanagement, bloated public sector and pension systems run amok.

Last week, over lunch (fresh sardines!) in Lisbon with a Harvard classmate who is a prominent entrepreneur in Portugal, we talked about our respective countries. He shared with me that while Portugal has made much progress since the long oppressive reign of António de Oliveira Salazar (1932-68), often simply referred to by Portuguese as “the Dictator,” he took special note of the lack of capacity and willingness of Portuguese to take risks of any sort in any business. While there are other factors (colonialism, wars, etc.), the contemporary view is that Salazar and his government machinery created in the Portuguese a mindset that the government would take care of everything if the populace just gave them their votes and acquiesced to its policies. It is frequently said that what Salazar did was to keep the country occupied with “Football, Fado and Fatima” (Portuguese sports, music and religion, respectively). What Salazar actually did was disembowel the inherent Portuguese entrepreneurial spirit, leading to a population ill prepared for the global world.


As Americans, what do we draw from this? While we must be careful to not attempt to overreach in the analogy, it seems clear that when people lose their inherent skepticism towards its government, regardless of its particular form, that with time the people inevitably are harmed. The rulers invariably win over the ruled. I am reminded of Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political thinker who over 160 years ago said “I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.” (Tocqueville also said “Socialism is a new form of slavery” but that is a topic for another day.) Tocqueville accurately predicted the Portugal of 2010.

I am convinced that the future of Portugal rests not in the hands of its political leaders but its ordinary people, who get up early and stay up late trying to secure a better future economically, socially and culturally for their family and communities. In many instances these are the entrepreneurs, those strange and restless personalities who undertake opportunities where they find it. They will likely not create the next multi-national company, but they can create something better than they have at the moment. And in Portugal, and perhaps here in the U.S., we need to encourage those who do this, in all their variant forms and contexts.

If not, and we choke off these restless spirits, we may find that the painful acronym has grown to “USPIGS.”