Expensive Meat

These customers are lined up in front of the Sea Breeze Farm booth at the Ballard Farmers' Market, waiting for the day's sales to begin. The line is there every week, rain or shine, because Sea Breeze usually runs out of their most popular meat and dairy products early in the day. The customers line up and wait even though Sea Breeze's meats cost two or three times as much as the meat at the grocery store.

We've come a long way since the 1970's, when angry housewives picketed and boycotted supermarkets over the rising cost of meat. In response to these angry consumers, the USDA implemented a program of subsidizing farmers to grow corn and soy, much of which ends up as cattle feed. This has ensured that the price of meat has stayed relatively low and relatively stable. At the same time, many American households discovered that they didn't need to use meat in every meal, every day of the week.

When you compare meat and dairy prices at the farmers' market with meat and dairy prices at the grocery store, you'll find a much bigger difference than when you compare fruit and vegetable prices at the farmers' market with fruit and vegetable prices at the grocery store. That's because it takes more resources to produce meat and dairy than it does to grow fruit and vegetables.

Bizarre federal policies can bring down the price of meat and dairy at the supermarket, but cows aren't adapted to eating corn and soy. The animals who eat these foods are unhealthy, and their meat is inferior. Low meat prices can't fool these consumers, who line up and wait for Sea Breeze to start selling their meat and dairy, week after week, in every kind of weather.