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Maybe locally produced items are priced as luxary items? I mean I buy lamb from my farmer neighbors at nice prices, but the local butcher shop is really expans

• s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I think you are on to something, but I still dont get why they would be priced at luxury rates in some place like Montana. I would think there would be a long list of potential sellers.
  • bsder 2y ago
    > I would think there would be a long list of potential sellers. But the problem is that the buyers are inconsistent. I remember a story before Covid about a chef in Boston(?) who was trying to buy everything locally. Meat, in particular, was expensive because everybody in the chain was pricing for if they only sold a small amount and had to cover the unsold rest as a loss. Everybody was de-risking the transaction at each transaction point. Once the chef committed to buying a completely consistent amount every single month, he could buy meat for about 80% less since the chef was now the one who was now on the hook for losses. Everybody always seems to write these articles starting from a proposition that "farmers are stupid"--farmers are NOT stupid. Farmers do things they way they do because it makes hard-nosed economic sense. If you want a different result, you're going to need to change the economic system around the farmers. However, you need to understand that "consolidation" is always going to be more profitable than not. This is why farmers started co-ops in the first place.