Community agriculture puts farmers' face on food - community supported agriculture

National Catholic Reporter, May 14, 1999 by Kathryn Casa

Growing movement bypasses conventional crop distribution

Editor's Note: This story is a sequel to "Food for thought: The political, economic and moral implications of your grocery list," which appeared in NCR's Feb. 12 issue.

If pesticides won't do it, if genetic engineering isn't the catalyst, if mega-farms aren't enough, then maybe Y2K will turn Americans back to the land. At least, that's the hope of Pennsylvania farmer and self-proclaimed optimist Rob Wood.

Wood believes that the potential Computer glitch -- which some fear could turn clocks back a century by erasing our technological advances at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2000 -- has a growing number of people seeking ways to be less dependent on big systems. And that might mean a boon for community supported agriculture.

Community supported agriculture (or CSAs, as such farms are called) is part of a small but growing trend among farmers and consumers around the country to bypass conventional agricultural distribution channels.

Although food buying habits of Americans -- the regular trips to the supermarket -- are deeply entrenched, Wood believes that a quest for personal autonomy could make people look harder at the sources of their food.

U.S. consumers generally accept food products that travel an average of 1,300 miles from farm to table. Compared to their European counterparts, shoppers here cast a less critical eye toward the unknown effects of genetically engineered species and seeds designed to work in concert with specific pesticides, as well as other farming practices dictated by multinational interests and global markets. So Wood says he's convinced it will take "something catastrophic" to finally make people aware of the origin and quality of their food. And that's where the millennium comes in.

But even if Y2K fails to come up big in the catastrophe department, Wood would continue to be a booster for community-supported farms. A 54-year-old urban refugee, Wood fled Baltimore with his wife in the 1980s to live off the land. He operates 26-acre Sproutwood Farm, which makes regular produce deliveries to about 40 subscribing members throughout the growing season. "Whatever it takes, the main idea is- to get people connected to the source of their food," Wood said.

In conventional agriculture operations, a grower sells one or two main crops to a middleman who takes it to the broader market. The food eventually makes its way to the grocery and finally to the table. The idea behind community supported agriculture is to eliminate the steps between growers and consumers, developing a regional food supply that, in turn, leads to a healthy local economy and a stronger sense of community.

According to the University of Massachusetts, people in almost every state buy 85 to 90 percent of their food from someplace else, which means billions of dollars slip through each state's coffers each year. Studies done at the university found that Massachusetts was capable of producing more than a third of its own food supply, translating into about $1 billion annually in spending that could be kept at home.

The concept of community supported agriculture originated in Japan about 30 years ago, where it is called teikei, which translates as "putting the farmers' face on food." And just as it takes a certain kind of consumer to be willing to "subscribe" to a CSA, it also takes a special kind of farmer -- someone who can market products as well as grow them -- and that means networking, newsletters, recipe suggestions, even Internet Web sites.

At Mariquita Farm, a family-run farm in Watsonville, Calif., at the heart of the fertile Central Valley, the husband-and-wife team of Julia Wiley and Andrew Griffin grow "everything but mangoes and asparagus," Julia said with just a little exaggeration. The couple has been running their CSA for three years, serving about 150 members in trendy Santa Cruz County and high-tech Silicon Valley.

Farmers' market on the Web

The home page of the Mariquita Web site (www.mariquita.com), was built by a friend of Julia's and is updated every two to three weeks. It includes links that tell what a CSA is, how to join, what's being grown, the length of the growing season, the cost of a share -- $14 to $19 a week -- and the location of the farm's 17 weekly drop points for produce ("usually a member's shady porch," said Julia, who, starting each April, makes the rounds twice a week.) More than half of the farm's members are on line, and they get a regular e-mail bulletin advising them of what's coming in that week's food basket.

"Most of our members are people who love farmers' markets but can't get there or they don't like to because they're such a scene," said Julia, who has been working with the family farming operation since 1992. A teacher by profession, she has a B.A. in history.

At the Mariquita Web site, cyber visitors learn that Andy, who has 20 years' experience in organic farming, also writes articles for the farm's newsletter and has written a fascinating history of the farm.