The Cost of Food

My neighbor just told me the supermarket is selling pork shoulders for $.99 per pound. He was, understandably, excited about this. 

I checked the prices for pork shoulder at some of the regenerative and pastured farms I could recall off the top of my head.

Sisu Farms - $11.00 per lb (where I order most of my meat and chicken from)

White Oak Pastures - $10.00 per lb (the farm of Will Harris)

Acabaonc Farms - >$10.00 per lb (a local farm on Long Island, NY where I’ve ordered meat for my family)

That’s what we’re up against. The cost to raise pigs the right way, is at least 10x more expensive than raising pigs conventionally (based on selling price). 

The reason regeneratively raised animals are more expensive isn’t just because they are receiving higher quality food, and have access to land to roam, while conventionally raised animals are stuck in small pens, cages, or overcrowded chicken coops, where they are fed a low quality diet of grains and corn.

It’s because, on top of that difference in the way they are raised, the grain and corn they are fed is highly subsidized by the U.S. government with your tax dollars. 

So, it’s not that pastured animals and regenerative farms are more expensive. Their price, is the right price. The problem is that conventionally raised animals, most of what you see on sale in the grocery store, has been made artificially cheap. At least, that’s how it appears.

Coincidentally, or not, the owner of Sisu Farms (mentioned above) sent out a newsletter this week talking about just that and more. She said that during a long drive to Kansa (700 miles) to have her turkeys processed at the closest USDA approved processing center, she listened to the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (I haven’t read it but it’s on my list now).

Here are some of the stats she rattled off from the book:

• Direct Farm Bill subsidies for corn and wheat - $3 billion

• Tax funded agriculture fuel - $22 billion

• Treatment of food related illnesses - $10 billion

• Collateral cost of pesticide use  - $8 billion

• Cost of nutrients lost to erosion $20 billion

Even though we know that feeding pigs, chickens, and cows, grains and corn isn’t what’s best for the animals or the humans that eat those animals, that’s what the government continues to subsidize. They subsidize it on the front end, and we all pay for it on the back end with all of the expenses listed above, and a $3 trillion healthcare spend.

In her email she also provided a link to reserve one of her turkeys for the holidays, which prompted me to look and compare the cost across three farming practices.

Sisu Farms Pasture Raised Turkeys - $11 - $13 per lb

Bowman Landes Free Range Turkeys - $4.59 per lb

Kroger Conventional Turkey - $1.89 per lb

I was at an Advancing Food is Medicine conference two weeks ago. The goal of the food is medicine movement is to promote regenerative agriculture and increase the availability and accessibility of food to treat diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, fatty liver disease, and more. 

A number of regenerative farmers and ranchers who used to farm conventionally spoke. They said one of the biggest obstacle they face is financial support. Both in the ability to secure loans that grant them the capital they need to transition from conventional to regenerative practices. And crop insurance, protection against lost of crops due to disease, weather, etc., which requires that they practice conventionally (i.e. using pesticides, herbicides, using feedlots, grain, corn) to maintain coverage. 

Financial support and investment seems like the easiest and lowest hanging fruit we could solve for. Shift the dollars that are subsidizing grain and corn, and use it to support the transition away from conventional agriculture. Give farmers a 3 - 5 year runway to make the move. Then take the savings realized from reducing fuel costs, food related illnesses, pesticide use, nutrient erosion, and healthcare costs (every 1% reducing in a diabetic patients A1C results in annual savings of $1,000) and invest it back into the food system.

Now that I’ve been in the room with these farmers and ranchers I can tell you my suspicions about the work ethic and character of these individuals has been confirmed. 

Give them a fighting chance, and they won’t disappoint. Right now they are receiving very minimal support, and they are still making enormous progress. Imagine the possibilities if we invested in them, which would be an investment in our food, an investment in our planet, and an investment in our health.

One of the speakers at the conference, a representative of the Savory Institute said it best, “Personal health is planetary health.”