I just got the week end paper in todays mail. In there was an ad for this weeks sales at a local store. Red or Yellow peppers 2/$4.00 and green peppers are 99c each. So, get your plants and get them planted. I am flabbergasted at that price. I know it's a holiday weekend coming up, but that is very high. I did hear everything will be high due to the drought in California. So, I think all of us will need to plant extra.
Someone can have mine, my family doesn't eat any of those. I am growing potatoes, two kinds of beans and attempting to grow corn again this year. Last year was a wash out on my whole garden so try, try, try again.
Carolyn, we get a lot of produce here out of Mexico, but the prices are rising on that, too. When we first heard about the drought in California affecting prices of even canned goods, we decided to expand our gardens. We have an area behind the barn that is a weed patch, or was. Now it's a vegetable and weed patch! We will have extra, or at least we hope so. The extras will go to the local food pantry. I can afford a $1 bell pepper, and fortunately have the space to grow my own so I don't have to pay that price or do without. It's going to be hard for food pantries to supply their clients.
I'm also starting to stock the freezer with meat, the price of beef especially has all ready started going up after the drought around here too and I imagine other meats will increase since the cost of what feed there is available will go up.
I was thinking I wasn't going to do broilers again this year...but with the cost of meat maybe I will. It is kind of hard to raise just a rump roast or a t-bone and the farmers aren't real keen on "open season" on their cows....
We eat a lot of veggies, and I have a vegetarian in the house as well. The amount of money I have had to spend on food this winter is ridiculous. I can not wait to have home grown vegetables again!
Astounding prices! Help me out here....Let's see...there is a financial crisis going on at the moment. People are loosing jobs. Therefore there are less people earning money. Am I right so far? So then, with less money to spend, the prices go up. What am I missing here?
There was/is a huge drought in California which is where a major portion of produce is grown for the US. Mexico also is another large grower/supplier, and also being affected by the drought http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Categor ... eId=470584 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-2 ... -hole.html
Glad got a whole hog in freezer. And still have few peppers left in there also. Go fish and eat them.
Ahhhhhh....I see. Its a shame though.--such prices. Do you reckon the high prices are based upon transportation costs alone or something else?
Transportion costs aren't the main factor of the high prices for food. Feed/water prices are up, which means any meat animal costs more to raise. Here in Texas, some West Texas ranchers are actually hauling in water for their cattle. There is pressure from foreign countries. Smithfield--a major producer of pork products like ham and sausage-- was recently bought by a Chinese company which will be shipping pork to China, making pork products more scarce here in the USA, and increasing the price. As an example, when we got our first hens in 2009, a 50lb. bag of organic feed cost about $11. Now, it is at $16, and probably will rise this summer. Our hens are going to do more foraging, and I'll fill their feeders less often. They won't suffer, but they will have a change of diet! We are fortunate in that we have large gardens; like Netty, we eat a lot of vegetables; eggs are a good source of protein; and if necessary, we can afford to use municipal water for the plants we need to stay alive and produce. Many folks can't. Those are the ones who will suffer most from the higher prices and lack of certain foods.
An surprising chain of economic info there, MG. It doesn't look so good in this light. I had heard the recent Chinese purchase of Smithfield. I found that interesting and wondered how that would go with the pork that they would then control.
There is also a virus in the pig herds that is causing loss of life in them. In early Winter there was a blizzard in the Dakota's? that killed almost the entire cow operation of the area. It was very unexpected and the loss was significant. There are a lot of factors coming in to the increase in the produce and meat prices. Jane...organic grain at 16.00 a 50# bag. What a bargain. Up here the bag of organic grain is like 50.00 out at Meyer's (in the catalog it states free shipping on grain, but the bag is 83.00) . When someone asks me if my eggs are organic I want to hurl. Not at the price of a bag of grain up here.
I see what you mean about the meat prices., but what do you think is causing the veggie prices to be so high in the stores?
