Cyndi's Two Cents

The price of food vs. everything else

Commentary.

It seems that the agriculture industry has spent a whole lot of time for a whole lot of years reminding our customers how little they pay for food instead of promoting its quality and how diverse and abundant and safe it is. At a time when everything is more expensive, increases in the price of food seem to be getting more than their fair share of scrutiny.

We have a consumer base seasoned to expect cheap food. You and I know it costs a great amount of money, time, and often back-breaking effort to farm and ranch in this country. But none of that matters when the consumer of what is grown only cares about the price they will pay for it.

Some consumers today might be willing to pay a little more for a product that is labeled or advertised as sustainable, as if farmers and ranchers have not been sustainable in the past. To have a sustainable farm or ranch you must create something that is both environmentally and economically enduring. We all know it takes a significant investment to produce quality meat, milk, eggs, poultry, corn, soybeans, hay, grain sorghum, tomatoes, cranberries, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, apples, peaches, grapes, and every other agricultural product grown by farmers and ranchers in this country.

Consumers expect cheap, sustainable food. Not better tasting. Not higher quality. Not abundant. Not safer. We, as an overall agriculture industry, have not done the best job promoting those things most farmers and ranchers strive to provide to customers.

AARP (formerly called the American Association of Retired Persons) shared some 1972 prices on its website last year. These prices are from Chicago-area newspaper ads:

• Rib-eye steak: $2.49 a pound
• Vanilla ice cream: $1.29 a gallon
• Bacon: 79 cents a pound
• Coffee: 66 cents a pound
• Chuck roast: 65 cents a pound
• Cantaloupes: 11 cents a pound
• Sweet corn: 5 cents an ear

A gallon of Sherwin Williams white interior paint would set you back $3.00 while a 7-inch circular saw cost $19.88 at Sears. A clothes washer was priced at $220 and an electric dryer at $90.

Fifty years ago, a gallon of gas cost 40 cents. You could mail a letter first-class for 8 cents. A dozen eggs cost 69 cents, and a package of Oreo cookies cost 59 cents. Ground beef was 95 cents per pound. A new house on average, cost $32,500 and a new car was $3,200.

In October of 1973, Wheat was $4.22 per bushel. Live cattle were $42.60 per hundred weight and hogs, $40.80.

For the 1972-1973 academic year, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign undergraduate tuition for a freshman was $486, room and board $1,100, books and school supplies $140.

Look at those prices and it is easy to see that meat, milk and eggs have not experienced the same price inflation as other products. And best of all, our food supply is safer, more diverse, and more abundant than it was half a century ago.