SCOTTSBLUFF — While we bow our heads and pray around a table piled high with food, surrounded with family and friends, we often take pause to reflect on the things we are thankful for.
One thought might slip everyone’s mind, however, we often take for granted the labors of the farmers and ranchers whose labor is responsible for our Thanksgiving feasts.
Those farmers and ranchers take home just 11.4 cents from every dollar that consumers spend on their Thanksgiving dinner meals, according to the National Farmers Union (NFU) Farmer’s Share publication. The Thanksgiving Farmer’s Share compares the retail food price of traditional holiday dinner items to the amount the farmer receives for each item they grow or raise.
“This holiday season, it’s important for us to take time to recognize and thank the family farmers and ranchers who provide our Thanksgiving meals,” said Rob Larew, NFU’s senior vice president for public policy and communications. “If you don’t live on a farm or work in agriculture, you probably don’t realize the tremendous difference between the price you pay for food at the grocery store and the prices farmers end up receiving for these products.”
Holiday food costs have declined recently, and while that’s something we can be thankful for, there’s an unfortunate trade off. In the midst of the worst farm economic downturn in the past 30 or 40 years, the incomes for America’s farm and ranch families have all but dried up to a trickle.
According to the USDA, farmers receive 17.4 cents of every food dollar you spend, while more than 80 percent of food costs cover off farm costs including marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing. All told, this accounts for more than 80 cents of every food dollar spent in the United States. However, for the 15 items NFU tracks for the Thanksgiving edition, farmers received a pittance of that — 11.4 cents of the retail food dollar.
So let’s dig into the numbers.
One pound of sweet potatoes (sans the marshmallows) will run you about $2.90 at the check out line. So what was the farmer’s share for that?
Twenty cents; two whole dimes.
That five-pound sack of Russet potatoes will cost you $4.49, and while it might be a bit of an effort to wash, peel, boil and mash them, even with the butter you’re still getting a good deal when you consider that the farmer’s share was only 69 cents per bag.
How about those cranberries? Sure, a 12-ounce bag retails for around $2.99, but the cranberry farmer in Wisconsin (which unseated Massachusetts as the highest producing state for cranberries in 1995) will take home just 8 cents of that. That’s a whopping three pennies and a nickel.
Or maybe we can talk about that package of 12 dinner rolls? It retails for about $3.49, however, that wheat farmer averaged a measly 6 cents. Same goes for the bag of stuffing, which retails for about $3.99 for a 15-ounce bag of bread cubes. Again, that farmer takes home all of six pennies.
And the centerpiece of any feast: the turkey.
Whether you choose to brine it or enjoy your turkey deep-fried, you can snag an 11-pound Butterball bird for about $18.59.
However, the turkey grower will collect just a nickel per pound when it retails at $1.69.
And what better to wash it all down with than an ice cold can of beer?
While there may be some screaming deals at your local liquor store, the average domestic six-pack of 12-ounce cans runs you about $7.99.
That isn’t half bad, but at 4 cents for the barley malt, rice and hops, that goes into each can, perhaps the next time you go into the local saloon, you might think of buying that farmer at the end of the bar a round or two.
Certainly, Thanksgiving presents an opportunity to raise awareness about food production, including misconceptions about food costs.
“Farmers and ranchers play the most valuable role in actually producing the food that is served at holiday dinners,” Larew said “Yet they make just pennies on the dollar for their products.”
REF: SPIKE JORDAN Ag Editor sjordan@starherald.com Nov 22, 2017.
