What is the price of rice in China?  Or better yet what is the price of limes in the U.S.?

A recent article in the Arizona Republic delves into the lime shortages, speaking to drug cartel violence, blight and bad weather in Mexico having driven the price of limes in Phoenix from $14 to $120 per case.(1) Hmm I say, not seeing any relevance to the higher price of limes effecting my life, unless of course I was a drinker of margaritas or eater of guacamole.

Then I found an article in the New York Daily News states “the U.S. receives more than 95% of its limes from Mexico…(2)” then the plot thickens.  However REALLY since I don’t drink margaritas and my guacamole is just fine without limes, what IS the big deal?

Well 95% of anything is a significant amount of any one thing to import.  What if I told you that according to the FDA “Nearly two-thirds of our fruits and vegetables--and 80% of seafood--eaten domestically come from outside the U.S. (4)”  OK so now we are not just talking about limes we are talking about 66% of ALL of our fresh fruits and vegetables coming from somewhere other than our own fertile U.S. soil.

Consider this, the article “Mexico Dominates U.S. Produce Imports (5)” posted on ThePacker.com sites U.S. Department of Agriculture showing Mexico as the largest supplier of fresh fruits and vegetables to the U.S., which in 2012 accounted for 69%, or $4.05 billion of the U.S. fresh vegetable imports and 37% or $2.86 billion of the U.S. fresh fruit imports.

According to the Congressional Research Report “The U.S. Trade Situation for Fruit and Vegetable Products (6)”, dated January 15, 2014, the major U.S. Imports from Mexico include:  tomatoes, avocados, peppers, grapes, cucumbers, melons, berries, onions, asparagus, citrus and assorted vegetables.

All this could make you pause and question…If a little bit of disharmony in Mexico can cause the price of limes to rise almost 800% in just a few short months, what might a little more disharmony cause?

·    Tomatoes & citrus that are currently $2 pound would be $16 a pound

·    Cucumbers that are currently $1 a pound would be $8 a pound

·    Melons currently at .39 per pound would be $3.12 per pound.

·    Grapes currently at $1.79 per pound would be $14.32 per pound.

·    Other fresh vegetables that currently sell from $0.29 to $3.99 per pound would be $2.32 to almost $32 per pound.

These are significant numbers and if even 25% of our food coming in from Mexico were to increase these amounts it would put a considerable strain on most of our pocketbooks.

So am I saying that it is bad that we are importing all this food?  Absolutely not, in fact at this point this is how we are feeding our culture. But there is a better way and it is time to reconsider these statistics and start making some changes.  The simplest step is to start growing our own food and interestingly most of what we import from Mexico can be grown in your own back and front yard. 

The benefits of growing your own food include: 

·    You know what is in it and if you want to grow completely organic you can

·    It is fresher and more nutrient dense

·    Reduction in food miles. Food miles are the distance food travels from farm to plate and in the U.S. the average food miles is 1500. That is just the average.  If you are consuming something from Chile it travels almost 5000 miles.

·    You get to connect with nature.

·    Have the pride and satisfaction of growing your own.

·    Find a local farmers market and befriend a farmer.  Give him or her your money directly.

·    Order a CSA share again from a local farmer.  What is a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and comes in many forms. Essentially you prepay a farmer for a set period of weeks or months, then each week you receive a basket of what they are growing in season.

·    Shop at a grocer that offers locally grown produce.

·    Find a restaurant that sources or better yet grows their own.

 

1 - http://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/2014/04/08/airlines-drop-limes-service/7467175/

2 - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lime-shortage-skyrocketing-prices-u-s-linked-mexican-drug-cartel-article-1.1741878

3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_price_of_rice_in_China

4  - http://www.fda.gov/downloads/aboutfda/centersoffices/oc/globalproductpathway/ucm259845.pdf

5 - http://www.thepacker.com/fruit-vegetable-news/Mexico-dominates-US-fresh-produce-imports-201449021.html

6 - http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34468.pdf

About Urban Farm - UrbanFarm.org is the home of a wide range of urban farming resources, education, tips and the 10,000 Urban Farms Project, which was created to discover a farm on every street. Founder Greg Peterson began gardening in Phoenix, Ariz. in 1975, discovered permaculture in 1991 and dubbed his personal residence in central Phoenix, The Urban Farm, in 2001. Peterson earned his Master’s in Urban an Environmental Planning from Arizona State University in 2006. His long history of environmental learning and growing food in the city contributes to the success of UrbanFarm.org. Peterson wrote and published The Urban Farm Simple Sustainability Series, sits on the board of Native Seed/SEARCH, and teaches the class ‘Sustainable Food and Farms’ at Arizona State University. To find out more, visit http://www.UrbanFarm.org.