I hear it almost daily…“Oh Scott, why is the organic produce so expensive,” or, “Why is local produce so expensive?” Well, there are a lot of reasons why the price of food goes up and down, or goes up and stays up, but whether or not something is too expensive or not, is a matter of personal perception, and is shaped by our values. So how do I feel?

I don’t consider it an option to buy commercially grown produce, when organics are available. I don’t consider it a burden, and I plan my food budget accordingly, with quality food taking precedence over things like videos and junk food. I place value on feeding myself healthy, delicious, fresh, and nutritious vegetables daily. I place value on supporting the farmers who make a living raising crops and tending the soil, both locally and afar. I value the fact that organic farming practices do less harm to the environment than commercial chemical farming practices. I value the fact that organic farming practices, when done with a holistic approach, contribute to the nebulous goal of having a sustainable food supply system in the United States. For me, these are some of the things I value and which influence my food purchasing decisions.

As for the nuts and bolts of understanding the costs of organic produce, it is fairly straightforward. First of all there is a huge demand for organic produce, and a limited, but steadily growing supply. The rate at which farmland is being transitioned into organic production has not been keeping up with the demand. Even the super Walmart stores are carrying organic produce these days! So, if you’re a medium sized, certified organic farmer in the Skagit Valley, maybe it is easier, cheaper, and more profitable to sell your fall lettuce harvest to the urban areas of Seattle, therefore reducing availability and increasing the price for getting that same lettuce delivered to Moscow.

The limited seasonal availability of certain crops and the cost of storage and shipping contribute to the high cost of organics. This is especially true in the Northwest, and the United States as a whole, where we only have a few regions where produce can be grown on a commercial scale year round. Organic pears grown in Washington are a good example. Usually the highest quality fruit is reserved for export to countries willing to pay a premium price to the grower/shipper. The rest of the crop is stored in refrigerated warehouses (think Tri-Cities, WA), and shipped out on trucks as the winter progresses. Both the storage and shipping of fresh product costs money, which gets reflected in the cost of the fruit as sold to the distributor. That cost gets raised and passed onto the produce department when I order a case of pears in February, and that wholesale price is then used to determine a retail price that is both profitable to the Co-op and fair to the consumer.

As if the limited seasonal availability isn’t challenging enough, consider the exponential increase in costs associated with shipping freshly harvested apples from Argentina, or blueberries from New Zealand, or peppers from Mexico during the seasons when these crops are not available in North America, which is at least a quarter of the year. Now the true costs of eating are starting to add up! In my opinion, food is truly, largely undervalued … partially because of farm subsidies, which artificially control the price of agricultural commodities; partly because of farm labor practices; and partly due to a cultural expectation that food should be cheap, no matter the cost. Even though a farm is organic, doesn’t mean the immigrants working the fields are making a living wage. But that’s a whole different discussion entirely.

And finally, you must consider the costs of running the produce department. We have competition from other stores, competition with the farmers’ markets, costs of labor, waste, theft, and supplies, which all must be considered when establishing a pricing structure that will make the department profitable at the end of the day. Unfortunately, as nice a ring as “sustainable business” has, the fact is that this department, and this store, has to be continuously profitable to keep up with inflation, rising costs of goods, maintenance, and other unforeseeable expenses, such as cooler failures. So…why is organic produce so expensive? Well, there’s lots of reasons …

But let’s set aside the costs and consider the benefits, or non-monetary value, of eating locally grown as well as organically grown produce.

By eating locally, we are supporting our friends and neighbors, creating farm jobs, circulating our money locally, growing our local food movement, strengthening the Co-op and the community, reducing the carbon footprint of our diet, and contributing to the health and well-being of our bodies.

By eating organically, we are contributing to the sustainability of our national food supply system, reducing the use of pesticides and herbicides globally, reducing our physical intake of chemical residues on the food we eat, contributing to ecological biodiversity by supporting well-run organic farming systems, contributing to soil and water conservation, and often supporting smaller farms while raising the awareness of where our food comes from.

So, consider these two scenarios the next time you are bemoaning the price of organic produce: In Japan, it is customary to pay upwards of $200 for a single perfect cantaloupe as a gift, and they have sold for as much as $26,000 each in years past. And finally, if you took all the money you spend every week on beer, chocolate, soda, and chips, and instead spent it solely on organic produce, I think you could have enough fruits and veggies for a week worth of meals for yourself, and it might not seem like such an outrageous expense. Then again, we all have different values, and I could be totally wrong.