I recently read in your paper about potatoes rising in price. It said that last year the average price of 10lbs of potatoes across Canada was $8.11 and this year it was $9.77.
The highest I can recall potatoes ever being here in Newfoundland was $7.99.
Somehow it appears that one mainland supermarket chain didn’t get the memo about the price rising because they’ve been selling here for the past several weeks for $2 for 10 pounds.
Now that is great for the consumer but not for the local farmer unless he is running a charity. Farmers pay 40+ cents a pound for seed potatoes, 40+ cents a pound for fertilizer, plus the cost of fuel and labour to plant and harvest the potatoes, plus the cost of tilling and hilling them up, plus the cost of washing, grading, bagging and delivering to the stores, plus storage cost.
Twenty cents a pound at retail is less than the cost of growing them and getting them to market. A farmer has to get a fair profit for his/her investment or they won’t be in business for long.
I don’t know if this particular supermarket owns the farm that produces this particular brand and they every once in a while will put on a sale at their cost of production as a way of giving back some of what they overcharged before and will charge in the future, or if it’s a way of letting local farmers know that they can crush us if we start producing any more than we already do.
Large mainland farms can produce cheaper than we can. They have the land mass to support the large machinery that can cut down their labour costs in planting, harvesting, washing and grading. They also get their seed potatoes and fertilizer cheaper than we do. They get more production out of an acre of land.
We sell quality against their quantity but we have a problem matching quantity prices.
If you care about taste, buy local.
If price is more important than taste, buy mainland.
If security of food supply is important, then buy local produce.
How are we going to entice young farmers into food production if they can’t get a fair return on their investment and their labour.
Everett Adams,
Grand Falls-Windsor
