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Genesee Valley Organic Community Supported Agriculture |
Getting ready to start a new farming season is a little like preparing for
a 9 month expedition to the Arctic Circle. We try to organize our management
team, assemble everything we need to purchase, and get equipment into working
order. In Wayne County, it’s not quite as hard to buy farm inputs as in
northern Alaska, but with days full of farm work, time and energy are just as
scarce. The answer to the often asked question, “What do you do
on the farm all winter?” is: we interview and hire interns; evaluate how
we well things went on the farm last year so we can do better next year; do
our bookkeeping; plan crops and rotations; fill out our organic certification
application; and shop for such items as seed, floating row cover, new plastic
for the greenhouse, green sand, rock phosphate, worm castings, tomato harvest
containers, and, as they say in auction announcements, many items too numerous
to mention.
Because of your $50 deposits to reserve shares, we do not have to borrow start
up money the way so many farms do, taking out operating loans every spring and
paying them back with fall harvest receipts. Do you know the song “The
Farmer is the Man?” One verse reads, “The farmer is the one, farmer
is the one, lives on credit till the fall. Then they take him by the hand and
they lead him from the land, and the banker is the one who gets it all.”
Our fiscal policy may be the most radical (and conservative) feature of our
farming. We do not farm for the bank. The support of our community makes this
possible!
Last year, with the support and agreement of the GVOCSA core, we increased the
number of shares from 165 to a little over 200. We do not intend to continue
growing. We needed to reach this size so that financially the farm would support
three full time farmers. This allows Ammie and Greg to try out their long time
dream of farming together. With the three of us sharing the job of home schooling
Helen, we are more like 2 1/2 full time farmers. Our plan, over the next five
years, is to exchange skills so that each of us knows all the jobs on the farm.
This year, I will train Ammie to run the greenhouse and Greg will share tillage
work with me. After some vague number of years, we would also like to add a
junior partner so that I, the most senior partner, can cut back to half time.
We want to run the farm efficiently enough so that we reduce the number of days
on which we need to work more than 10 hours, and average out the hours at 40
hour weeks during the growing season from March through early December. Given
northeast weather conditions, it is unlikely that we will ever put in less than
10 hours a day during the peak planting time of late April through mid June.
Seeking dynamic equilibrium instead of perpetual growth may be the second most
radical feature of our farming.
When we talk about sustainable food systems, I think it is crucial that we share
an understanding that what we are striving for is not further economic growth,
but sustainable development. In his book Beyond Growth, Herman
E. Daly makes this distinction: “We can simply distinguish growth (quantitative
expansion) from development (qualitative improvement), and urge ourselves to
develop as much as possible, while ceasing to grow, once the regenerative and
absorptive capacities of the ecosystem are reached...” (p. 28) A whole
series of convincing studies, such as Daly’s, and Donella and Dennis Meadows’
Beyond the Limits, make the case that further growth endangers our very
existence. Daly insists, “The scale of the economy must remain below the
capacity of the ecosystem sustainably to supply services such as photosynthesis,
pollination, purification of air and water, maintenance of climate, filtering
of excessive ultraviolet radiation, recycling of wastes, etc. Adjustment in
the service of growth has pushed us beyond a sustainable scale.” (p. 166)
Our goal for Peacework is to develop, that is, to improve quality - the quality
of our lives as farmers, the quality of the food we produce, the quality of
our care of our environment, and the quality of our community.
Improving the quality of our community, we believe, means limiting the number
of participants in our CSA so that we do not sacrifice intimacy to financial
pressures. Somehow as a community, we must figure out how to balance farm financial
needs with members’ pocketbooks. Greg, Ammie and I want to get to know
every member of the CSA. Our chance to have conversations with each of you when
you come to the farm is a big part of what makes the work fun for us. We thoroughly
enjoy your diversity in age, race, ethnic identity, religion, sexual orientation,
and income level. Diversity, both biological and social, is an important component
of sustainability.
I have spent a few days this winter acting as technical adviser to the Northeast
Neighborhood Association (CSA) market garden project, an exciting and challenging
effort to bring ecologically produced food to a area where the average annual
income is around $12,000. For years, our CSA has struggled with ways to include
more low income members. The staff at NENA is getting ready to start a small
CSA for neighborhood families, growing some of the food in the “Vineyard,”
and several small gardens. They also plan to continue selling their produce
and products from the Small-Scale Processors Association at the Public Market.
Our farm and other organic farms in the area, such as the Porters, may be able
to supply crops like corn, winter squash and carrots for which NENA does not
have space.
Our other set of winter activities might come under the heading of professional
development. All of us from the farm, and Lila Bluestone from the Core, participated
in the NOFA-NY conference. I learned about a new pest control material called
Surround that we want to try this season. It is made out of kaolin clay, a non-toxic,
natural substance. A thorough coating of clay may reduce the number of cucumber
and squash beetles nibbling our cucumbers, melons and squash. While I was at
the NOFA-RI and NOFA-VT. conferences, Greg, Helen and the Kraais went to the
Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. They bought tapes of the
moving and inspiring keynotes by Jim Hightower and Winona LaDuke (we would be
happy to lend these out). I participated in the first Scientific Congress on
Organic Agricultural Research, a gathering of 50 farmers and 50 researchers
to begin to set an agenda for organic research in this country. Ammie and Greg
are attending a three day training in organic agriculture - soil, weeds and
pests - set up by Abby Seaman, as part of a Sustainable Agriculture Research
and Education (SARE) funded research project on the relationship between organic
management and insect pests.
I confess to being on too many committees, but it is hard to resist some of
the exciting projects that are underway. I attended a meeting of the Steering
Committee for the NE CSA Project. We are the interim board for the Robyn Van
En Center for CSA. Housed at Wilson College in Pennsylvania, the Center manages
the data base listing CSAs around the country, provides technical support to
CSAs, and sponsors research on CSAs. On your GVOCSA contract, you have the option
of donating a dollar to the Center. If we can get enough members of many CSAs
to do this, the Robyn Van En Center will be no longer need grants. We also made
plans for the next NE CSA Conference which will take place at Frost Valley YMCA
Camp in Claryville, NY, December 7 - 9. Please put this conference on your calendars.
Frost Valley is a beautiful place; there will be a full program for children;
and an exciting program for everyone. I would like to get as many GVOCSA members
to attend this conference as possible so other farmers can meet consumers who
participate actively in farming.
Over the next year, I hope you will be hearing a lot more about another gathering
I attended - the annual meeting of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture.
Campaign committees have put in a lot of work already on policy proposals for
the 2002 Farm Bill, a mammoth piece of legislation governing food and farm policy
in this country. The Campaign’s overarching goals are to put a larger portion
of the food dollar in the hands of family farmers while strengthening rural
communities, improving the environment and increasing social justice. No small
ambitions!
We are very pleased that two excellent people seeking internships have found
us. David Mihalyi approached us way back last spring. David lives and works
in Waterloo, and plans to become an organic flower farmer. If you are ever driving
through Waterloo, stop at the elementary school to see the beautiful gardens
David has created with the school children. Our second intern will be Rebecca
Graff, who has been working in San Francisco on low-income access to decent
housing. Not a city girl by birth, Rebecca’s ambition is to learn how to
farm organically and then go home to Missouri to take over the family farm and
work with her dad. I expect these two will make us work hard answering their
questions and sharing the skills they want to be able to apply in the near future.
With such a fine team, we are looking forward to our next growing season at
Peacework. Whatever the weather, we will do our best to provide ample amounts
of tasty and nutritious food for your shares.
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