Shouldn’t free range organic meat retail more than “farmed” meat?
ATB
Tahr
Woof! Now that's what I call a question and the short answer to it is... NO!
In a fair and equitable world the price something sells for should idealy return all of the costs (fixed, variable etc) of that something's production plus a reasonable element of profit as reward/inducement to those whose risk-taking placed that something on the market in the first place.
But, of course, we don't actually live in such an ideal, fair and equitable world. We live in one dictated to by "Market Forces" and complicated by so-called "Public Opinion" and "Political Will". A very fickle world it seems at times too, full of misinformation and the fashion of the moment. Virtually the only constants are change (pardon my oxymoron) and the wish to make money. And woe betide the producer of the wrong product or who fails to use the most competitive means of production.
But... I'm thinking; you aren't really looking for those sorts of answer, are you?
"Organics" is a concept for the simple minded, supported with a zeal more often reserved for religious beliefs, that is used by the cynical to gain a market premium for products with no actual intrinsic superiority. Organic food is simply no more or less nutritious or wholesome than conventionally produced food (here in the UK at any rate) though it is far less economical to produce. Having said this I realise that many of the organic producers themselves "buy into" the fallacy that what they are doing is
better even if only
morally so. On the "moral" issue they are totally at sea and deluded by the way, when two thirds of the world's population is mal-nourished or starving at any given time, unless, that is, you are going to go all weirdly calvanistic on me here and say man's suffering is for the greater good or some such pish. The big buyers and sellers (the retailers) know the truth, of course, but they are not going to burst the bubble so long as there's an extra pound/renminbi to be made, are they? ... And, given how costly
true organic food is to produce you might think a market premium is justified, per the sentiment I expressed at paragraph two (above), that would only be fair, wouldn't it? But why should you pay more for something that is really no better, just because it costs more to produce than an exact alternative product? Especially, when its wasteful and overly costly production is so morally reprehensible into the bargain? That would just be illogical... but that doesn't stop it from happening.
Free range organic meat??? Now, there's another oxymoron. Truly "free range" meat production cannot, by definition, be "Organic". Organics doesn't allow for anything but total control of production within very strict, if often bizarrely arbitrary, parameters. The fact that "wild" deer, for instance, can browse and graze "conventionally" managed crops and/or the same land as "conventionally" reared farm livestock means that they cannot and should not be considered as "organic" as their diet and living environment cannot be guaranteed to fall within said strict parameters. You might think a hillside in the Highlands is an organic environment but if there are, or have ever been, conventionally produced sheep running around it there will almost certainly have been organo-phosphate or synthetic pyrethroid dips used on those sheep and the residues will be washed off them and onto that hillside. Likewise there will or could be residues from many and various sorts of very durable anthelmintics and numerous other wonder products used in farming and forestry today, many of which can actually be, as suggested above, arbitrarily, incorporated into "organic" systems anyway... with s
pecial permissions ??? But I digress, because that last one always used to puzzle me so much when I was being a simple, pure and naive soul trying to figure out if organics was for me, as a farm production system. Guess what? Once I realised it was all so much b-s I didn't go for it, but don't tell the housewife I told you why. It would just be too, too upsetting for her.
As a small aside here... You do realise that the famous bottled water "Evian" is the word Naive spelled backwards, don't you?
Returning to previous comments on this thread: You won't convince me that the cost of some suitable stalking gear and a bullet warrants getting the same price or more for wild, shot venison (a product of infinitely variable quality) than a farmer in this country is entitled to receive for his quality controlled product, especially given all of his investment and risk. However, Market Forces, Public Opinion and Political Will are all fickle mistresses, so I'm not saying it can't or won't happen....but.... £2.80 a kilo for Roe already sounds like damned good money to me.
High horse, dismount... and breath in.
I hope that answers your question Tahr, Atb~Tom