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The organic farmgate and wholesale price data set
contains:
- Monthly organic and conventional farmgate prices
for broccoli and carrots,
- Monthly organic and conventional wholesale (first receiver) prices for poultry (broilers) and eggs,
- Monthly organic market (f.o.b. or spot) prices for grain and feedstuffs,
- Monthly organic and conventional wholesale prices
for broccoli, carrots, and mesclun mix, and
- A limited set of organic prices (and corresponding
conventional prices) for other fruits and vegetables
from the Boston and San Francisco wholesale markets.
Data Sources
Data on market prices for organic produce, poultry/eggs, and grain/feedstuffs are available from USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Market News. Produce reports are daily, while poultry/eggs and grain/feedstuffs are weekly. For comparison, conventional prices are available for produce items and poultry/eggs.
Market News reports wholesale prices for some organic produce items in its daily wholesale fruit and vegetable reports, which cover terminal markets in 15 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, and Seattle. Organic produce prices first appeared in the Boston and Philadelphia Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Report in 1992. Since then, Market News has increasingly reported organic prices in a number of other wholesale markets, most consistently for Boston and San Francisco. Reported prices reflect transactions by wholesalers for sales of less than a carload or truckload and for products that are of good quality and condition, unless otherwise noted.
Conventional wholesale prices are
for produce items in the Boston and San
Francisco markets that correspond to the same commodity,
variety, package, size, and grade as their organic
counterparts.
Organic price data for eggs and poultry at the intermediary level became available from AMS Market News starting in January 2004. The reports track the prices paid to the poultry or egg companies by the first receiver (or that entity that purchases the product from the companies, such as a retailer, distributor, or manufacturer). Prices include all types of transactions, including contract and spot market.
Conventional price data for eggs and poultry are also obtained from AMS Market News. Like the organic price data, the conventional price data reported by AMS represent the price paid by the first receiver to the poultry or egg companies.
Organic price data for grain and feedstuffs became available from AMS Market News in February 2007 for the Upper Midwest and in April 2007 for the Corn Belt. Prices are free on board (f.o.b.) (price at place of origin not including transportation charges) and negotiated spot market (price of a commodity available for immediate delivery).
At the farmgate level, organic prices for fruits and vegetables for 1999-2007 were obtained from a proprietary data source, Organic Food Business News (OFBN), which gathered the data from a weekly nationwide survey of farmers, buyers, traders, and shippers. A major strength of the data was that they provided regular information on price levels for a variety of organic crops over a long period of time. However, the data are from a private source and are hard to evaluate for consistency and accuracy. Conventional farmgate prices are U.S. monthly f.o.b. shipping-point prices from USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service as reported in ERS's Vegetables and Melons Yearbook.
Why This Information Is Important
Understanding trends in price premiums can provide
some insight into relative changes in the demand and
supply of organic products, and help indicate the maturity of markets and whether the
dramatic growth in organic agriculture is likely to continue. Studies of organic
price premiums, however, are limited by a lack of
consistent and comparable price data. These data were
collected to examine price premiums and marketing
margins for a select number of fresh produce items and
price premiums for organic poultry and eggs.
External Contributors
For more information, contact...
- Terry
Long, Branch Chief, Fruit and Vegetable Market News, AMS, (202) 720-2175, for organic wholesale produce prices,
- Michael Sheats, Chief, Poultry Market News and
Analysis Branch, AMS, (202) 720-6911, for organic wholesale (first receiver) poultry and egg prices, and
- Jim Bernau, Livestock Reporting Supervisor, AMS, (515) 284-4460, for organic grain and feedstuff prices.
Prices can also be downloaded by individual
wholesale market and by day from AMS's Archived
Market News Reports. Users can also sign
up to receive AMS Market
News Reports via e-mail from USDA's Economics,
Statistics, and Market Information System.
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