CSA Farmer

Localvore: A localvore (local = place, vore = to swallow or devour) is a person who is committed to eating foods grown within the local area (foodshed) often defined as within a 100-mile radius.

Last year I attended a marketing workshop at the annual NOFA summer conference. The presenter geared his talk to small local farmers. He drew a standard Bell Curve graph on the board to illustrate what has happened in the organic foods movement in the past 30 years or so. Those of you familiar with Bell Curves and also old enough to remember 30 years ago will know that the starting point of this Curve dates to approximately the late 60's when organic food began to get some attention from consumers. Decades pass and organic sales begin an upward climb towards the peak of the curve. The peak we are told is the point at which we have both a very successful and lucrative product as well as increasing amounts of competitors looking for their slice of this profitable market niche. In the presenter's estimation, “organic” as a lucrative brand name is at peak or even slightly past peak. Keep in mind, he told us this does not mean the product is no longer worthy or viable, it simply means that from a marketing standpoint it maybe time to find a “new” product.

In a previous article about preparing a CSA to take an increasingly important place in the local food economy, I resolved to add more perennial plants to our product mix. And so I sit here with a print catalog and two open windows to online catalogs trying to decide which of the hundreds of choices would be best for our farm. It's been 11 years since I've felt such trepidation, bewilderment, excitement and anticipation in preparing a product order for the upcoming season. I think selecting fruit trees, berry bushes and other perennial plants maybe just as much fun as my annual seed order. Just as with seed orders I best not let my eyes be bigger than my stomach. So what to start with first?

Winter, and I have time to read. My readings this winter have taken me down an unexpected path; a path that indicates that food production may in the next decade move increasingly away from big business and more towards local farms and perhaps even to suburban backyards and urban lots.

My interest was peaked (pun soon to be revealed) this past August at this summer’s Northeast Organic Farming Association conference. Concurrent workshops are held throughout the conference. Pete and I try to pick workshops we each find interesting without attending the same ones so as to collectively gain more knowledge and insight. It so happens, however, that we both chose workshops relating to fossil fuels use, both in agriculture and daily living. We both viewed the documentary “The End of Suburbia.” I learned in one of my classes that on average it takes ten calories of fossil fuel to get one calorie of food into my house. These ten calories excludes the energy used to store (refrigeration or freezing) and cook it. In the article by Norman Church, Why Our Food is So Dependant on Oil, Mr. Church points out that food that travels internationally bumps the ratio even higher. For example, when iceberg lettuce is exported to the UK from the USA by plane, 127 calories of energy (aviation fuel) are needed to transport 1 calorie of lettuce across the Atlantic. Similarly, 97 calories of transport energy are needed to import 1 calorie of asparagus by plane from Chile.

Your Backyard Farmer: A New Model for CSA

When I wrote the March CSA article I knew I had my work cut out for me. I knew what a CSA was but I knew I also had a lot to learn. I did research on the beginnings of CSA’s in the US and found many people who were more than willing to share their ideas and experiences with me.

Autumn's heavy frost isn't the end of CSA shares for some farms. More and more farms are opting to extend their growing season with the use of heavy duty-season extenders. Consumers are much more aware of what they're eating, how it has been raised and grown, and where their food comes from than they were 10 years ago. We want good food! A lot of us want our fresh food available to us in what are traditionally considered to be out-of-season times.

Anyone who gardens or farms knows that the winter months are a slow time of the year. It is the time we all take to evaluate what worked and, sometimes more importantly, what didn’t work over the past few months. It is also the time for long wintery afternoons spent inside with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book or a deck of cards with the kids.

But what about those of us who count on our gardens or fields for a steady income? Most Farmers Markets around here close in mid-August. Granted, most of our sellers are farmers with large fields of corn and/or wheat to harvest. Winter can be a hard time for those of us without the rest of the farm to count on.

2007 brings the 10th anniversaryr for my husband Pete and I as CSA farmers. It has been such a gift to examine and enjoy our CSA through these writings.

I have in the past year discussed various aspects of running a CSA from the nuts and bolts of seeds stating or growing corn to some of the administrative aspects such as pickup schedules and the writing of a weekly newsletter.

Imagine your child’s surprise when you help them break open a garden-grown pea pod and they discover that fresh peas taste – sweet! How about their astonishment when the little sunflower seed they plant sprouts to become a sturdy seven foot plant with a flower the size of their head?

Gardening with your child can be a fun and exciting experience that will give you both bountiful memories and experiences. As an added bonus you can both get some exercise outside (away from the TV), and even learn fascinating lessons about nature and the world around us.

The list of gifts from the farm is virtually endless; a farmer’s spare time usually isn’t. The lack of lots of spare time need not be a barrier to the sharing of your farm’s gifts. Simply match the gifts to your time and talents. The following are a few suggestions.

We are all familiar with the ubiquitous host or hostess gift - the bottle of wine - but unless you’ve made it yourself I suggest you substitute with gifts right from the barn or field. My favorites are a dozen fresh eggs, a bouquet of flowers, or vegetables either singly such as one beautiful butternut squash or perfect pumpkin, or a collection of whatever vegetables are ripe at the time.

What's Your Share Worth? This is the tile of an article written by J.P. Cooley and D.A. Lass and is actually an extract of Cooley’s Master’s thesis comparing CSA Share Cost vs its Retail Value. Written in 1996, it tracks three Massachusetts CSAs for one season.

I read the above study back about eight years ago and I’ve always known in my gut that their findings were true, that most CSAs are worth approximately double the amount paid. I had not attempted to reproduce their study on my own farm beyond pricing a few items each summer. Occasionally I’d report my findings in a newsletter or two, things such as “your raspberries this week are worth about $4 and corn is selling locally for about $7.80 a dozen.”