Patrice Gros

Once in a while, say once a year, a farmers' market patron will walk to my table and make a comment about my vegetable prices being too high. Food prices are a big component of the American food landscape as it impacts the way people buy food and eat. Price evolution is also a major aspect of the late small-scale farming "renaissance" to which I will include my farm.

In years past, farmers were working on a small scale, from 1 to 50 acres, and sold much of their production to neighboring outlets: eateries, grocery stores, etc. But "Big Ag" and big markets sprang up and farmers, those who could, got bigger and started to sell truckloads, boatloads, and planeloads to faraway places. In the name of efficiency and market economics, volumes and acreages went through the roof, and our farming family shrank to a mere 2 percent of the U.S. population.

With this came the claim that Americans have now the cheapest food in the world standing at about 25 percent of the average consumptive basket, allowing all access to "safe, affordable food".

National health crisis

In effect, this type of standardized, highly processed, long-transported food has created a national health crisis reaching all levels of society and all ages. Obesity, diabetes and heart disease are among the sad consequences of decades of "safe, affordable food" strategies.

Some people are finally noticing and turning their back (or tummies) away from industrial food and looking for better nutritional sources. More and more they are showing up at farmers markets and watching cooking channels. The kitchen is coming back to life.

But returning to a diet based on fresh, unprocessed food from local sources will not beat the 25 percent mark set by industrial agriculture. It might be more like 35 percent (a 40 percent food budget increase). Hence the question: is small scale farming an expensive and elitist proposition?

In fact there is nothing elitist about the way the French and Italians eat and live. Their living standards measured in dollars are sensibly below ours, yet they spend more money and time and energy on good food than we do.

Managing the food budget

Here is the answer to that puzzle: less car, less real estate, less traveling, less "stuff;" more good food. We can all learn to manage our food budget by focusing on quality and seasonality. Right now cucumbers and tomatoes are plentiful and affordable: so how about a gazpacho soup, a Greek salad or a ratatouille?

In the long run, other more complex cost-offsets may take place as our society rediscovers the pleasures of the table: better family life leading to less crime and lower incarceration rates; better nutrition leading to fewer pharmaceuticals and lower medical costs; and, dare I mention it, better agricultural practices leading to reduced flooding, pollution, and CO2 emissions.

In a perfect new world, family farmers will feed their communities and make a good living doing it. Can we retool our life patterns and allow this to happen? Yes, we can!