Financial Sustainability - It's More Than Income

Some of my kids and a sweet neighbor girl walking the pigs

While the complete definition of sustainable agriculture includes consideration for the environment, public health, animal welfare, and the local community, I was recently in a conversation about the financial aspect of sustainable agriculture.

Specifically, the conversation was about whether or not local, farm-fresh eggs are economically sustainable at $3.00/dozen.

For some farmers, $3.00/dozen is less than what it costs to produce the eggs.  For our family, $3.00 is sustainable, and as I thought about why that is true, I had some thoughts I wanted to share.

About pigs.


Actually, it's about why $3 eggs can be financially sustainable.

Our family raises the food we raise to feed ourselves.  We sell the excess to help cover the costs of our own food.  We sell it at a price we believe is reasonable in order to help people who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to buy good food.

But back to the pigs.

Every year we raise three pigs.  We figured how many we would eat in a year, and how many more we'd need to raise and sell to cover our costs.  To put one hog in our freezer, we need to sell two others.  The income from selling those two pigs covers our costs in raising all three and our own cut and wrap fees.

And it covers so much more.

You see, I don't just get a hog in my freezer every year.  I get a hog I couldn't otherwise afford.  I get an all-natural, humanely raised hog - whose diet and life are known to me.  This year, I even get a heritage hog.

See, if we took our current diet and applied the going rate for the kind of food we eat, our food bill would be well in excess of $1,000/month.  Of course, if we had to pay cash like that, we'd change our diet!

We'd have to change so many other things as well.

See, from our little farm we get all of our chicken, pork, beef, eggs, milk and produce.  We also get most of our milk byproducts from our own cow.  All of this is all-natural and humanely raised.  All but the pork is pastured.

If we had to buy that from the store - or other producers - our lives would change dramatically.  First, I'd need to get a job outside the home or the husband would need to get a second income.  If I went out to work, my children would need to enter public school.  If I went out of the home to work and sent the kids out for school, we wouldn't need this property.  My husband could become a trainer at some barn, we could move into town and live the "American Dream."

And that sounds like my worst nightmare.

It works for many people; don't get me wrong - but it is nowhere near the life we love.

So, I sell eggs for $3.00/dozen.  I am not going to get rich off of that - in fact, I don't even make minimum wage off of it.  But don't think for a minute that the small farmer selling a few dozen eggs a week isn't reaping serious benefits - they just may not be obvious in our accounting logs.