Our planet is racing at 66,600 miles an hour in our orbit, and we always end up at the same point in produce every year at the same time. The scenario is stable, reliable, and predictable. The problem is we forget about it every year, or at least we don’t think about it.

The Earth’s axis (tilt) is 23.2°. During the summer—in the northern hemisphere—we are tilted toward the sun. The summer solstice is when we are closest. And during the winter solstice, we are tilted away from the sun at that same 23.2°. That is a 46.4° swing. In the process we lose more than 15 hours of daylight. This celestial fact, more than anything else, defines what we can and cannot grow in our region. Every weekend gardener knows this, although probably not in quite this context. We forget to connect the dots at the produce counter in February when tomatoes aren’t very good, and really expensive. Our latitude is 47.6° north. This gives us about a 60 day window of standard produce harvest. Two months. In contrast, the same harvest at 36.7° is 120 days. Other factors contribute: altitude, coastal vs. mountain, etc., but mostly it’s our latitude, and the tilt. So, if the harvest here is 60 days, what is the local farmer to do with that land for the other 10 months? The simple economics of feeding your family tells you, if you can’t feed your family for the year on one harvest, plant something you can reap more than one harvest out of. That’s why we have so much wheat, barley and hay in this area. The other things such as wine-grapes, apples, pears, and peaches yield enough and are substantially profitable for the farmer to survive on for the year. This reason is why there’s just not more, for example, lettuce farmers in this area.

So let’s explore why we don’t see lettuce farmers thrive in this region. According to WSU, one acre of productive land can produce between 20,000 and 24,000 heads of lettuce at harvest. In our growing climate, you can reap about one and a half harvests in those 60 days. So that means, a productive acre, at best conditions, could produce 36,000 heads of lettuce. The shelf life of lettuce after harvest is about two weeks. At the end of the harvest window, there would be another two weeks of lettuce available in the area. The population of Spokane County is about 500,000. How many acres of just lettuce would we need to feed this county? The tourist mouths to feed, too. That’s a lot of lettuce. And what about the other 10 months outside of harvest? There is a significant gap in the math. It has nothing to do with a lack of farmers. It has everything to do with where we sit on this beautiful blue planet.

When winter comes, our produce flies south just like the birds: Southern California, Arizona, Florida, South and Central America. It gets picked earlier in the growing cycle in order to be as ripe as possible when it arrives. The goal is for it to ripen en-route. So we have distance, transportation costs, Mother Nature, and the fact that we are 46.4° further away from the sun at that particular time of year conspiring to influence the inevitable change in the quality and prices of produce. Hopefully, when you’re standing at the produce counter in February, looking at those tomatoes that just aren’t quite perfect, think of that 23.2° angle pointing away from the sun. Remember we’re moving at 66,600 miles an hour. Those great tomatoes are on their way.

Food for thought.

Before you know it, you’ll be back in your flip-flops on again.

Chris Patterson is the Director of Business Solutions at Food Services of America.  He is a 30 year veteran of the hospitality and restaurant industry and has conducted more than 700 trainings, seminars, and consulting sessions with Inland Northwest operators.