Will Farmer's Markets Benefit from the Food Tariffs? ---PART 2---
In my last installment, I opined that farmer's markets are a unique outlet in the food supply chain, in part because we see so many elementary economic lessons at play. With the new tariffs on imported foods coming on the scene (except for when they're not, but usually are on again, but sometimes off again, though there are exceptions, except when there aren't, etc.) grocery prices have started to rise.
A student in my supply chain management class gave a presentation last week about his uncle's BBQ restaurant and said they've quit offering certain types of fish on their menu: their suppliers stopped carrying it so as not to have to suffer the tariff, while the alternative for the uncle was to pay >2x the price at Sam's Club or Costco for the same fish.
If consumers (and restauranteurs alike) are about to face higher food prices no matter where they shop, does this mean that people now have an additional incentive to just go to farmer's markets? Potentially.
My hunch is that farmer's markets are going to record amount of gross sales, and likely hit historically high volume of patrons. But, will supply rise to meet demand? Will prospective vendors take the plunge this year?
(The Law of Supply clearly tells us that vendors want to sell more if the price is higher than they do when it's lower, and prospective sellers aren't going to budge unless the price get high enough to motivate them to start selling).
That said, I myself plan to eat all my produce grown here at home with my family (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, peaches, plums, kumquats, and a laundry list of vegetables), though if my hypothesis plays out, I guess in terms of foregone income this could be my most expensive fruit consumption yet. But it's worth it. And my family still plans to remain a part of the faithful in supporting our local market.
One of my favorite farmer's markets is the Lafayette, IN farmer's market that my wife and I came to love dearly during my graduate school years. We know several of the vendors personally and keep in touch even all this time later. They recently announced that they are not just taking up one street in the downtown area, but two, and have redirected parking to a nearby multilevel structure. This is due to a new high level of vendors, which is a direct reflection on their anticipation of a new high level of patrons.
This is consistent with my hypothesis: if consumers are expecting to pay higher prices for "non-special" food anyway, why not go ahead and spring for "local", "farm fresh", "organically grown", and all the other things that signal some kind of intangible value that can't be widely found at the grocery? I haven't looked into what other markets are anticipating because it's about to be finals week at Murray State and time is increasingly scarce, otherwise for sake of curiosity I'd like to know if this is the case everywhere!
Funny enough, and I'll close with a teaser for Part III of this impromptu series, a question was posed to me while I was getting a haircut the other day: is there any kind of new regulation that may be driving people to the farmer's market this season? Perhaps the banning of certain dyes, preservatives, and other "forgotten ingredients" in our food? More on this later. Maybe I'll see you soon at the farmer's market!
