With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots — literally — cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.

Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers.

"People’s home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we’ve seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We’re selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I’ve never seen anything like it."

Gardening advocates, who have long struggled to get America grubby, have dubbed the newly planted tracts "recession gardens" and hope to shape the interest into a movement similar to the victory gardens of World War II.

Those gardens, modeled after a White House patch planted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943, were intended to inspire self-sufficiency, and at their peak supplied 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce, said Roger Doiron, founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International.

Source: news.yahoo.com

Vegetable Seeds

The headline above and the paragraphs below are from the most recent edition of Fedco’s seed catalog.  As we have been suspecting (and Fedco confirms) seeds prices have risen dramatically.

Oct. 10, 2008: We are in the midst of the deluge now: a financial hurricane the likes of which I never would have imagined. Commodity price fluctuations I have not seen before in my lifetime. Oil, shooting up from $60 to $145 a barrel, then back down in just a few months to $80. Gasoline prices up and down like a yo-yo.

And now, seed prices. I’ve been 30 years in this business and these are the highest increases to us I’ve ever seen. The ethanol boom diverting land to corn production has had a tremendous impact on farm commodity prices including vegetable seeds. Wholesale prices for pea and bean seed are up 30-50%, for corn and squash 20% or more. Even so, wholesalers could not find growers for all crops so several varieties are missing from our catalog. Horrible growing weather this summer has exacerbated the shortage.

With the collateral damage only beginning to ripple out from the broken
financial centers to our communities, this is a hard time to have to raise our prices. We are a lean operation and are doing our best to absorb what we can.

This is exactly what we have been expecting.  Now, that being duly noted, purchasing vegetable seed and growing your own food is still by far a superior, healthier and more cost effective way of providing food for the family than relying on one of your local grocery stores.

Here are some general numbers:

• The average American household allocates approximately 13-14% of it’s income for Food. This is sure to continue to rise, as it has over the past few years.
• In 2006, American families spent 44% of their food budget eating out and the average household spends roughly $5,000 a year on groceries.

Food inflation has been going on all summer, as far as I have noticed, and it’s done not by necessarily raising prices alone, but also by reducing the overall size or portion of the food product itself.  So what happens is that you end up spending more money for even less product.

Put a stop to it now, and start growing your own food, it is imperative that you do so for the future, for the survival of your family.

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