General Discussion

Who is always on the look out for a good market to sell my produce to, grocery stores have become monopoly corporations making profits off undercutting farm prices.

Do you think the farmer is making that $10 for a 4 oz bag of spring mix of lettuces? Not a chance.

Grocery stores have contracts with distributors who buy the cheapest products they can get from a farmer. It use to be local farmers but now they buy from any state with the cheapest price. In the case of Walmart, they have their own distributor built into their corporation. And in many cases they even control the farmer.

I once tried to sell my lamb to a grocery chain. I had to get in touch with their headquarter's purchase center and they sent me a huge packet to fill out. I had to tell them everything from the type of grasses my flock ate to where I got my potable water. Only at the very end did they ask about vaccinations and organic practices.

It was pages and pages of details that in many cases I didn't have. My flock eats what mother nature decides to grow on my fields. I boost it every few years with specific grass seeds. But for the most part it is what mother nature provides.

So, I filled out the pages and send it off. They come back with more questions and "recommendations". If I wanted to sell my lamb to them, I had to feed them this, not do that, restrict the sheep movements to certain size paddocks, get better control over the grasses in my fields, bottle feed and ween early. A lot more work and expenses to follow. In the end I declined because the price per pound they were willing to pay was way less than what I was getting at farmer's markets.

So, basically they wanted feed lot lambs, raised on specific grasses with lots of grains and bottle fed from birth.

So the corporations have got Americans trained to buy from their chain grocery stores that they fill with the cheapest foods they can find.

This has pretty well wiped out small farmers and taken away most of our markets in the local area.

Corporations never create jobs they only take jobs away from local communities and then you are forced to buy their crap. They have wiped out most all their smaller competitions and have reduced the quality of foods available for purchase. Did you know this year I planted 20 different kind of radishes? How many does a chain store sell?

Not buying food is not the answer. The solution as a consumer is to grow a garden, raise your own food, buy direct from farmers and join food coops.

The solution as a society is to enforce antitrust laws.