RE: Re: small farmers surviving with beyond or ganic

[Guest guest]

> small farmers cannot compete with industrial farms when they're selling

the

> same products. A small farmer can make a profit by selling

> highly-nutritional food at high prices, but only if he makes it clear to

the

> customers that his food is so superior as to be another product

altogether.

> If he fails to do this, and if the customers don't figure it out on their

> own, then they'll choose the cheaper, factory-farmed food almost every

time.

....and herein lies one of the areas of greatest government involvement. The

producers of the low-nutrition, factory-farmed products are protected to a

degree from competition and public education efforts. An attempt to show

that a 'standard' agricultural product is in any way bad or inferior is

considered libel in many states. Even the more conservative path of simply

trying to claim that *your* product is special often requires prohibitively

expensive laboratory verification of the claims before such labeling is

allowed. This can be worked around through direct marketing, but direct

marketing is not always an available option for farmers. Successful direct

marketing of such products requires proximity to a relatively large

population base or to a moderate population base with an unusual

demographic. Truly rural small producers can rarely achieve a high enough

volume of direct sales to make a living. Granted a few manage to do so by

striking upon a niche market that has special appeal, or by finding a

complimentary but non-agricultural business to supplement

(bed-and-breakfasts, farming seminars, etc). Furthermore, direct marketing

is limited by government in all areas and is completely forbidden with

regard to some products in some areas.

However, I don't believe that it's all the governments fault either. Issues

that boil down to unilateral fault are extremely rare if not entirely

non-existent.

[Guest guest]

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>Even the more conservative path of simply

>trying to claim that *your* product is special often requires prohibitively

>expensive laboratory verification of the claims before such labeling is

>allowed.

There's a way around this, though, at least for part of the

problem. There's plenty of genuine third-party literature on the benefits

of pasture-feeding animals, for example, so a farmer who sells grass-fed

beef doesn't have to make the claims for himself and his own products

specifically, but for the class of grass-fed beef generally, and can merely

show people the existing literature on the subject. The same even goes for

more complex issues like soil fertility, though such claims would require

some kind of documentation of the farmer's soil's fertility, but a few soil

tests aren't going to break the bank.

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