Tomatoes Should Be $100 a Pound
The Urban-(ish) Farmer — June 2026
The Urban-(ish) Farmer
This Month's Think Piece
"Tomatoes Should Be $100 a Pound"
...okay not really. But $16? Let's talk about it.
If deep dives into food economics aren't your thing, that is cool too :) Feel free to skip to the bottom and get to the market. But if you want to kinda understand why real food costs what it costs — stay with me for a minute.
What's Good Family
I need your attention for about 5 minutes. Maybe less if you read fast. And I promise by the end of this you will never look at a tomato the same way again.
Now before anybody panics! NO, tomatoes should NOT be $100 a pound. That is insane and I would never. But I put that in the subject line because I needed you to open this email, and clearly it worked, so… you're welcome :)
What I DO want to talk about is why that beautiful tomato at your local farmers market could easily justify costing more than $16 a pound if we told the truth about what it takes to grow locally on a smaller scale in a city like Aurora or Denver — and why the fact that it doesn't is one of the biggest economic lies we accept every single day.
Let me introduce you to somebody. His name is Tyrone.
Meet Tyrone the Tomato
Here is where I would create an AI image of Tyrone the Tomato, but I fear the backlash :). So we have to just use our imagination of what Tyrone looks like.
Tyrone started life as a single organic heirloom seed. Full of potential. Dreaming of being big, beautiful, flavorful, and vibrant. Tyrone had ONE goal. To grow up and produce some of the most delicious tomatoes this side of Aurora. But Tyrone couldn't do it alone.
Enter Gabbi the Gardener. Gabbi and Tyrone struck a deal. A real one. Gabbi said: I will take you from seed to harvest. I will give you the best soil in town. I will feed you, water you, and protect you from insects, disease, hail, birds, and whatever else Colorado decides to throw at us. I will be out there with you every. single. day. For nearly six months!
All Gabbi asked in return was simple: let me sell the tomatoes you produce AT COST. Just enough to recover what I put in. No profit. No emergency fund. Just break even. Tyrone, who frankly just wanted to be great, agreed immediately and signed the contract.
The Journey Begins…
Most people think Tyrone's story starts when he gets planted in the garden. It doesn't. His journey begins nearly two months earlier in Gabbi's nursery. First he is seeded into a tray. Then moved into a larger pot, then a larger one again as his roots grow. Before planting, he must also be hardened off and slowly introduced to outdoor conditions so he can survive in the real world.
By the time Tyrone finally reaches the garden, Gabbi has already invested about 40 minutes of hands-on labor, grow lights running 16 hours a day for two months, and all the supplies needed to get him there. In other words, Tyrone spent eight weeks living rent free under Gabbi's care before he ever touched real soil.
Four Months Later…
Tyrone is THRIVING. Big. Strong. Loaded with beautiful fruit. Doing exactly what Tyrone was born to do. Gabbi… is sunburnt, exhausted, questioning all her life decisions, and deeply reconsidering this partnership because Tyrone did not do a SINGLE THING except lay there and absorb resources for six months. But a deal is a deal. So Gabbi puts on her green accounting hat and starts doing the math for this one plant.
Gabbi's Books 📝
One tomato plant. Grown honestly in Aurora. Total: $149.13.
Now let's talk yield. A healthy heirloom tomato plant in decent conditions might produce somewhere in the range of 10 to 20 pounds over a season. Let's say Tyrone gives Gabbi 15 to 20 pounds of tomatoes in a solid year.
With everything Gabbi put into this one plant adding up to about $149, here is what the math actually looks like: At 20 pounds — a great year — her real cost is about $7.46 per pound. At 15 pounds — a solid year — it is closer to $9.94 per pound. And if weather, pests, or a Colorado hailstorm drops that yield down to 10 pounds? Gabbi is looking at nearly $15 a pound without making a single dollar of profit.
So when you hear me say a tomato could honestly be worth $16 a pound — that's not a fantasy number. That's what happens when Tyrone has a rough season, which happens out here ALL THE TIME.
Add in a bad year, equipment that breaks, and the years of knowledge Gabbi has in her hands that nobody is paying her for, and that number stops sounding crazy real fast.
So Why Is That Tomato at the Store $0.99?
Just a question…
Because someone, somewhere, got paid almost nothing to grow it. Because the land it was grown on was mined instead of built. Because the water was subsidized. Because the truck driver was overworked. Because the farmworker was underpaid and unprotected. Because every cost that Gabbi calculated honestly, somebody else in that supply chain absorbed silently, unfairly, and invisibly.
You didn't get a deal at $0.99. You got the receipt for someone else's exploitation. The cost didn't disappear. It just got passed to people who had no power to say no. Its really that simple.
Why We Charge $3 Anyway
Our community can't pay $7 to $15 a pound for tomatoes. I know that. You know that. And I refuse to let economics be the ceiling on what our people eat.
That's why we run Double Up Food Bucks. That's why we have Urban Symbiosis Vouchers. That's why we accept SNAP at the Rebel Marketplace. That's why the Community Storefront is pay-what-you-can. We are building systems that absorb the gap between what food actually costs and what our community can actually afford — because that gap is not your fault. It's a policy failure, a wage crisis, and a housing crisis wearing a produce sticker.
We're not underpricing food. We're subsidizing dignity.
Every time you shop at the Rebel Marketplace, you're not just buying tomatoes. You're voting for a food system that tells the truth. You're supporting Gabbi. You're standing with Tyrone. You're supporting a parallel economy that actually gives a damn about Northwest Aurora.
No one is coming to save us, Family. But we can absolutely feed each other. TAP In. The market is running. Your neighbors grew your food. Come get it.
Keep Growing — James!
(And Tyrone says thank you. Even though he did absolutely nothing. 🍅)