With only about a dozen vendors – including one offering
Coffee-Mate fresh from the assembly line – the new Civic Center Farmer’s Market won’t be confused with Seattle’s legendary Pike Place Market anytime soon.
Wednesday was only the first day for the market, though, and I did bring a pound of fabulous organic cherries from Rancho Durazno of Palisade back to the office, so all was not lost.
“Farmers markets are exploding across Colorado,” said Tim Larsen of the Colorado Department of Agriculture. “They’re everywhere.”
To a large degree, their popularity is due to the burgeoning demand for locally grown organic produce, meat and dairy products. Nationwide, demand for organics has increased by more than 20 percent per year since 1990.
So even though Colorado is among the top five states for acreage in organic farming and is home to some of the nation’s leading organic production and marketing organizations, it’s tough to find enough growers to man the tents in all the farmers markets opening around the state this spring.
It’s the curse of success.
But that’s just the beginning. The real doomsday scenario could be just months away, when Wal-Mart debuts its full line of organic foods across the country.
Jim Dyer, director of the Colorado Organic Producers Association, admits to deep ambivalence about the plan announced recently by Wal-Mart executives, who said the world’s largest retailer will sell organics at prices just 10 percent above those of conventionally grown foods.
He fears it’s a deal with the devil.
“On one hand, the more organic produce there is out there, the better,” he said. And making it available to more consumers through low pricing is admirable.
“I have to give them credit,” he said. “They’re responding to consumer demand faster than the government.”
But the survival of small organic farmers who have been the backbone of the industry for decades in Colorado and around the rest of the country is threatened as the industry inevitably moves toward the global, corporate, lowest-cost- possible production model.
“Cutting the price at the retail level means passing that along as a loss to farmers,” Dyer said.
Most farmers can’t cut their costs enough to survive selling their crops at prices just 10 percent higher than conventional products.
Organic production is more labor-
intensive at every phase from seed to table, Dyer said.
Soils must be managed through crop rotation instead of chemical fertilizers. Crops are cultivated instead of sprayed to remove weeds. Livestock are allowed to graze. Fruits are left to ripen on the vine. Processors avoid preservatives.
To achieve all that at only 10 percent more cost means that Wal-Mart will look to foreign growers where labor is cheap, lobby the U.S. Department of Agriculture to relax its standards for certified organic foods or both, undercutting local growers. It’s inevitable.
“Then I worry that it will be very hard for organic growers to get a fair price anymore,” said Dyer, who produces wool from endangered Navajo Churro sheep, as well as some eggs, lamb and vegetables, on his organic farm near Durango.
So Dyer said the best hope for the survival of farms such as his is to cultivate relationships with consumers. And that’s where farmers markets come in.
“The farmers markets can’t feed the world,” Dyer said, “but they’re a wonderful way for people to become more discerning consumers.”
City folks discover the flavor of vine- ripened tomatoes and fresh-picked sweet corn. They taste their first arugula and see their first purple potato.
They meet a farmer who can explain that the reason mesclun is in short supply is because the unseasonable hot weather wrecked the crops. And then, finally, they understand.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
David Harsanyi’s column will return soon.
