I recently gave a presentation on marketing, and we talked briefly about the price of eggs. A lot of farmers don’t want to mess with trying to sell eggs because of people who sell them for $2/dozen as some sort of hobby, usually ‘around the neighborhood’ or ‘at the end of their driveway’. In other words, since so many consumers are focusing on price alone, the eggs that a farmer would produce as a part of his or her farm-business can’t compete with hobby farm eggs because a farmer trying to make farming his or her livelihood has to actually account for the costs of production and try to–at the very, most miserable least–break even. It’s not only eggs at the end of hobby farmers’ driveways causing this either. I’ve seen eggs at farmers’ markets going for that price (which is crazy).


Anyway, I was researching the costs of production for conventional (factory) eggs, pastured eggs, and other egg raising methods when I found an interesting article at Mother Jones. The article talks briefly about eggs and then goes on to discuss the pork industry through a similar lens (i.e. price and *all* of the costs). About midway through the article, I read this:

“So we have a genuine quandary here: A farmer who’s just scraping by while doing the right thing by his land and his birds, charging a price that makes the whole concept of alternative food systems seem hopelessly elitist.”

(see the rest of the article here)

Now, the farmer in this story is charging $8/dozen…which is two-to-three times the prices you’ll find at markets in Wisconsin. Is that price actually elitist if what it really means is that a farmer can earn an honest margin for his or her work and–more importantly–keep on doing it? What does a farmer deserve to make? What’s a fair profit margin? Are farmers in Wisconsin charging enough for their eggs?

According to Health & Human Services, the poverty level for 2014 is $23,850 for a family of 4 and $15,730 for a family of 2. If a small family farm has an average profit margin of 20%, the farm would need gross sales of $100,000 to earn $20,000 in net profits. That’s ~$2,000 in sales per week to end up around the poverty line. Our farm charges $3.95/lb for a whole chicken, so that is around 112 chickens per week (5,824 chickens/year) to sell if each chicken weighs 4.5lbs (they don’t). You can buy whole chickens through major wholesale suppliers for as low as $.75/lb. If we could compete with that price, we’d have to sell 591 chickens per week (30,732 chickens/year) to make the same amount of money. Even if we competed with retail prices at a grocery store, Walmart often sells their Tyson chickens for $.99/lb. All situations above remaining the same, that’s 449 chickens per week (23,348 per year).

To give you some context for these numbers, we worked ourselves too hard last year and without hiring or partnering with someone or another farm…we’ll never do last year again. Still, even though we were exhausted in every way at the end of the year, we produced the most birds we’ve ever had on the farm. If you count up *every* bird we raised, we ended up with ~7,000 birds. I don’t even want to talk about how many eggs we’d have to sell each week at $4/dozen in order to achieve the same weekly sales (500 dozen!!). Incidentally, these numbers are highlighting how important it is for small family farms to have a diverse array of correctly priced products.

This also brings me back to $2/dozen eggs.

It should be obvious at this point that $2/dozen is below the costs of production for anyone who doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of birds in giant warehouses. Massive industrial farms had a cost of production of $.65-$.75/dozen in December 2013 (see stats here), and these are heavily subsidized, incredibly vertically integrated farms that have a Death-Star-like ability to destroy planets to leverage the market to achieve the lowest costs possible. After they add their profit margin and a retail store adds theirs, *now* you’ve got $2/dozen eggs.


My problem with all of this is that under-pricing ends up creating an expectation in the marketplace that eggs can be produced on a small farm at that price *and* cover costs and a decent profit. They can’t. Not even close. This leads farmers who want to do right by their land, themselves, their animals (etc.) to opt out of raising eggs in many cases because their price–which should include the cost of production at a bare minimum–turns people off and makes some think of these eggs as elitist or of farmers’ markets as a place full of highfalutin’ snobs and farmers raking in hay bales of profit. This too is far from the truth, but it’s a common enough perception that it has real-world effects on farmers, many of whom are working extremely hard to still find themselves and/or their families earning a salary from their farm that qualifies them to be impoverished.

This scenario plays out over and over again. It’s either $2/dozen eggs…$2 bags of delicate greens in the middle of the harshest winter we’ve had in recent memory (on top of astronomical LP prices, which many greenhouses are heated with)…products that are purchased on the cheap at stores or food auctions and re-sold at a market…or products that are purchased from other farms at a pittance and then up-charged so that the end consumer isn’t paying the farmer who produced the product but only the person who brought it to market—they should both be paid of course, but fairly and in proportion to the work they’ve done.

These cheaper products might sell well, but ultimately they are working against small farms. In the long run, they’re a dead-end for whoever is selling them too, unless that person has another income stream to exist on…and the reality for most small farmers is that they cannot easily exist, especially in the beginning, without off-farm jobs. Those jobs take away from a person’s time on the farm, which tends to slow or limit the farm’s growth, but they also allow the person to keep on farming and trying to find a way to make the farm their livelihood. While some of this will be unavoidable for some time, making farming your livelihood shouldn’t come across like a radical proposition…right?

What we end up with is a lot of small farms charging cheaper prices for what they *do* produce and these products are only priced as low as they are because a farmer is scared-to-death of pricing it to reflect the costs of production *and* an honest profit margin. This expands the quandry up above to one where not only do small farms have to combat the idea that they, their products or their customers are elitist, they also have to navigate a market that is far outside of their control due to the major, global influences of industrial food systems while simultaneously finding ways to not be undermined by hobby farms or unethical farmers and/or vendors who are eroding farmers’ livelihoods out from underneath them with irrational pricing and unethical practices. Compounding all of this is how taboo it is for people to discuss their numbers (i.e. costs of production, profit margins, earnings, etc). A lot of farmers are likely charging too little because they simply don’t realize that they’re selling themselves out of business, and a short conversation about accounting could help change that overnight.


So what do we do? Can we ask people to not purchase those cheaper products because of their effects on small farming in general? Can we ask producers who are selling those items to increase their prices so that they make a better margin–even if they didn’t do anything to produce it in the first place? Can we ask them to do that without being considered criminals who are conspiring on price? Even telling the truth about a particular farm or vendor could get someone into legal trouble if they’re not careful. Is it even possible to have farmers’ markets that can really enforce strict rules without taking even more time out of market managers’ lives?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I’m very optimistic about our ability to find ways to resolve these issues. Some would argue that our society isn’t ready to believe in or support what small farms can do, or that the odds are stacked so heavily against small farms given the nature of our dominant food systems. I believe that it’s just a matter of misplaced trust. People like cheap food, but many people also like to think that they’re not being manipulated, lied to or fed by unhealthy, unsustainable, unethical and destructive food systems. Education is part of the solution, so talking about this with your friends, family and farmers is a good start. The more conversations that we have, the more likely it is that we can arrive to long-term solutions that work out well for everyone…and I mean everyone, even the ‘big guys’. So, yeah, I’m very interested in what you are thinking and what you have to say. If you feel comfortable enough to share your own thoughts, I’d love to read them. Thanks! :)

Hello everyone! We hope that, like us, you have spent the last week or two with family and/or friends, and that you’re having a wonderful holiday season. Now we are all faced with the eve of the new year, and as is often the case…we start to think. Typically, this gets us thinking about what we wanted to happen in the last year, what actually *did* happen and ultimately what might come to pass in the next year. Hopes, dreams, ideas, you know what I mean.

For us, 2013 was overwhelming in a lot of ways. As is often the case with life, some of it was great, some was bad, some was frustrating, and sometimes we just had to shrug our shoulders and move forward. Well, I suppose we always find ourselves doing that last part. In any case, I have been bumbling about, wondering what I was going to write to you all as this year came to a close. It’s not like I think you are waiting for me to say something, but I try to keep in touch with you all on a regular basis. Lately, I’ve been more focused on other things, which brings me to this article.

Which article? THIS ONE!

It’s an article that was written by Andrew French, who farms with his wife Khaiti at their farm–L.T.D. (Living The Dream) Farm–in Clayton, WI. I have never met Andrew, but I attended a workshop that Khaiti put on at a conference last year, and since then I’ve stayed in touch. In any case, I found myself scrolling through Facebook when I saw their link to this article. It talks about what we, our friends, fellow farmers, ‘food’ organizations and farm(ing) supporters in general are trying so hard to accomplish, and it’s one of the better pieces I’ve ever read on the subject. Perhaps it’s because the message–regenerate yourself–is hitting home pretty hard these days, as I try to take a step back, relax and give my body, mind and spirit the precious time they need to recover from 2013. It doesn’t matter though. Ultimately, the message here is one that we should all reflect upon no matter where we go to work or how we feel at the moment.

Reading through the article is simultaneously cathartic and reinvigorating for me, and I haven’t begun to truly reflect on everything Andrew talks about. Granted, I feel like I think about those things on a near-constant basis, but thinking in an echo chamber tends to make it hard for the great ideas to emerge from the din. I try, desperately, to avoid thinking like that, but in some ways it’s inevitable. I’d say this is especially true for myself, as I internalize a lot of thoughts and feelings on certain things (ok, everything) and let them percolate there until I can find the best, most healthy way for me to deal with whatever it is. Andrew, in a sense, has pulled me out of that and back into the arena we all too often forget exists. That is, we are not alone in our thoughts, or for that matter…our actions. (h/t Dalai Lama)

So, yeah, the article is inspiring a lot of ideas as well, and as I sit here typing this to you now I can pretty much guarantee you that things will be changing for us in 2014. We will still be farming of course, but before we really get to any in-depth planning for the coming season, I think we need to reorient ourselves and really determine where it is that we are headed. The past four years have been an incredibly fast, rewarding and exhausting venture, and I know now that if we are going to have another four years in us, we need to do a better job of taking care of ourselves.

Anyway, I already have a lot more to say about *all* of this than I want to include on this posting. My intent was to share a wonderful article, my thoughts about it and where we are and to wish you all a Happy New Year. We are looking forward to seeing you all again, and we are incredibly thankful for everything you have done to help us make our dream and the dream(s) that Andrew talks about a reality for us and for as many people as possible. As things come into focus for us for 2014, I will be sure to keep you updated along the way.







Stage 1: Purchase 50 turkeys and ship them to your location
Stage 3: Feed those turkeys
Stage 4: Slaughter those turkeys

Stage 1


Stage 2

Grand Total: $.16 each

Stage 3


Stage 4

So, here’s what I’m looking at in my head:



Then I look back at $1.38/lb.




$15.45 x 50 = $772.50 total
$11.59 x 50 = $579.50 total













Apologies for the slight delay here, but the grain bin has been up for a week now. This is a CMC (Custom Marketing Company) bin that is often referred to as an “18 by 5” because it is 18 feet wide and made up of 5 rings. It is between 20-30 feet tall, so that puts it just underneath the roof of the pole barn it’s next to. Why CMC? Well, for one, they have a patented “Pressure Cure” system that only uses air to dry the corn. Many operations use air and heat, or they will use air and heat to dry their corn in one bin and then move it to another bin for storage. Our bin lets us put the corn in, dry it and store it in the same place. It may seem trivial, but the less you handle your corn…the better. On top of that, we don’t have to have all of the equipment one needs to dry corn with heat (etc). The Pressure Cure system has its doubters, but the way it works is by maximizing the amount of air you can push through the corn in a particular bin. Our bin has two 7.5HP fans to blow air, which is a lot of air movement for a smaller bin like ours. The fans are so strong that if you started them without any (or enough) corn in the bin, you can blow the floor off of its supports. Even when there is enough corn in there, any ‘fines’ or smaller particulates and the thin outer shells of corn kernels (aka “bee’s wings”) are blown up and out of the ten roof vents. The air creates a drying front that starts at the bottom and then moves steadily up through the corn. Once you place corn into any bin, it is a race to dry the corn at the very top before it starts to mold. For us, we don’t have a lot of corn or a large bin, so we should be able to dry our corn in a few days. When you talk to people with huge bins though, they can take a month or longer to dry their corn. That’s with the fans running 24/7.


In the picture above, you see one of the two fans. The box with “Warning” on it houses the On/Off toggle, and it is a built in disconnect switch. The stand it is sitting on has two jacks on it that allow you to move the platform so that the fan is as close to perfectly level as possible. This is important because if your fan isn’t level it can really wear on its bearings over time and then you have a broken fan. Fans of any sort are pretty much automatically expensive, and these fans are no exception.


This is just a picture of the crew cutting holes into the bin so that the fans and their ductwork have an opening into the bin. This is all done below the drying floor, which looks like this.


Can you see all of the little openings there? These allow all of the air to move through the floor and into the corn, and they also keep corn from falling through the floor. In fact, you can dry pretty much anything with this kind of drying floor. This piece was cut out to make room for one of the unload auger’s doors. The unload auger is part of a very important piece of the bin called a Power Sweep. Here’s what it looks like.


The power sweep has an auger on top of the floor (the sweep) and an auger underneath the floor that moves the corn outside (you can see where the corn comes out in the very top photo, it’s sticking out just to the right of the door). There is a door in the center of the floor that opens up into the auger below the floor, and the auger on top of the floor slowly moves around the bin, moving corn into that door. Most of the corn is removed this way, but at the very end you open the other door and the corn on the sides is worked into that door and augered outside. It’s possible to get corn out of a bin without a power sweep, but it’s not advisable.


This picture is showing how the bin is secured to the concrete pad. After holes are drilled into the concrete at numerous points around the bin, you insert that long bolt into the hold and sledge hammer it into the pad. That bolt is called a wedge bolt because the very bottom of it will expand inside the hole when you hit it with the hammer. This makes a very secure anchor. Once it is in, you put a nut onto the bolt and tighten it down. Do it 20 more times and it’s anchored!


Here’s the main door. You can see that behind the outer cover are three inner doors that each have their own securing system. These doors remind me of being on a ship or submarine in the Navy with how many bolts and tighteners are involved. Also note that the inner doors swing inward, so even if you were an idiot you couldn’t open those doors if there was corn behind them. If you were to stick your head inside this door and look up and to the left, you would see the inner ladder that allows one to climb down into the bin. There is a portal on the roof of the bin where you can climb up the outside ladder and then into the bin.

Anyway, what am I forgetting? This bin has an opening in the very top of the roof for loading corn into the bin. Some bins have portals that allow you to load from the side of the roof, but that’s not ideal as you then have to spread the corn. We may have to do some spreading, but by center loading the corn it will pour in like sand in an hourglass. How do you get the corn up there? Another auger, but this one is nearly 60 feet long. Our bin requires a minimum length of 45 feet so that the auger will reach the hole at the top of the bin. As corn is harvested by the combine, the combine holds the shelled corn in its own tank(s). When it is full, the combine swing an auger of its own out and over a gravity box and unloads the corn into that. It will likely take a couple of gravity boxes–so called because their contents are unloaded via gravity. You then take those gravity boxes over to the 60 foot auger that has been pre-positioned for unloading into the bin. The corn then slides out of the gravity boxes, into the auger’s ‘mouth’ and then augered up and into the bin. There are other methods one can follow, but this gives you the basic idea.

Now, all we have to do is connect the electrical to the main panel, test everything, put on some final touches (i.e. seal anything we can find where water might find its way in), hire a combine and wait for good weather for harvesting…though this cold is pretty nice because it’s keeping the fields frozen and not mucky. We’ll see how it goes. So far, so good. Any questions? :)

This is just a quick post to let you know that we’ve sold out of our Thanksgiving turkeys for the year. We keep a cushion of 15-20 birds just in case Mother Nature sends some coyotes–or some other predator–our way like she did a couple of years ago, but they are also spoken for via our waiting list (which is also no longer available). So we are really, truly sold out. We will try to raise more next year, as the demand for our turkeys keeps going up year-to-year.

If you are in Madison, you should be able to find some of our turkeys for sale at Underground Butcher, but I imagine they will also go fast now that most people are in full-on Thanksgiving mode. We also know the other farm(ers) offering turkeys there well (Ninepatch), and they have a wonderful farm located in North-Central Wisconsin. So, rest assured that you’ll be getting a quality bird through Underground regardless of which farm it was raised on.

If the turkeys at Underground also sell out, or you’re not located in Madison and you’d like a quality bird for Thanksgiving, we can do our best to help you find another farm to get a turkey from.

Next year, you can look for our sign-up lists at our farmers’ markets starting in August.


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Ted MulveyOshkosh, WI
Chris and Maria practice sustainable agriculture and humane livestock husbandry practices, pasture raising heritage breeds, keeping the strains alive for flavor diversity. They even have a farm sanctuary area where they place poultry that is pecked and bullied by the other poultry, so they can enjoy some quality of life before processing
My family and I have been purchasing Nami Moon chickens for over a year and we could never go back to grocery store chicken. Not only do we have piece of mind that these chickens were raised humanely and with great food and care, we also know it is the best chicken we have EVER tasted. When you bake a Nami Moons chicken, the whole house smells like heaven. We have used their stock kits and those k…
Lisa and Gene HoodAppleton, WI