Farmers Market Prices: Dsm and around Iowa

At the 2015 PFI Annual Conference, Kay Jensen of JenEhr Farm prompted farmers in her session to write down their prices for six common market vegetables: broccoli, carrot, greens, green beans, radish and tomato. I collected these responses and organized them by region, promising I would soon have them up on the blog. Now, six months later, here they are!

And my timing couldn’t be better. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service just released the latest weekly results of the Des Moines Farmers Market price survey. Note that a bag, bunch, etc is determined by the individual producer.

To paraphrase for our purposes, here are the reported ranges for our six crops of interest from the Des Moines Farmers Market this week (averages not reported):

• Broccoli, carrot, green beans: not available
• Greens: $2.50 – $5.00 / bag (mixed greens) ; Kale $2 – 6 / bag
• Radish: $1 – 3 / bunch
• Greenhouse tomato: $2.50 – 3 / lb (red); $3 -4 / lb (heirloom)

From the 2015 Annual Conference, here is the Iowa state regional breakdown, which I eyeball averaged during the session (pretty accurately, I think). One extremely important caveat: Not all prices given had units, and units provided differed. However, I would assume the following units: 

• Broccoli: per pound
• Carrots: per pound (or sometimes per bunch)
• Greens: per bag (1/3 lb bag? 1/2 lb bag? no telling.) variety was also not specified, so this could include everything from baby mixed greens to mature kale and chard.
• Green Beans: per pound
• Radish: per bunch (1 lb bunch?)
• Tomato: per pound

For each region used in the table below, three to five farmers reported prices.

I’m sure we’ll hear more on pricing throughout the summer, but thought I’d offer up this tidbit of info.

Happy sales.