"We are a good example of what you can do when you work together," said Nathaniel Thompson of Remembrance Farm, which sold out its CSAs this year and currently has 80 people on its wait list.
What is CSA? Short for Community Supported Agriculture, this initialism refers to an agreement between a farmer and nearby residents in which residents "buy" part of the farm and thus ensure the farm's existence and the production of a harvest. Residents pay a certain amount per year, helping to cover the costs of operation. In return, they collect part of the harvest each week throughout the entire growing season. A typical CSA might feature cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, melons, squash, chard, lettuce, basil, kale, chard, collards, cabbage, beans, and peas. Fruit shares are often available separately as well.
Remembrance offers 65 full season shares, and 18 half-season this year. Other farms, like Sweet Land and Stick and Stone, offer more than 400 shares. But area CSAs vary in other ways as well. Some offer pick-your-own shares, in which people select and harvest their own crops from the farm, allowing them to really participate in the labor of collecting their own food. Others prepare a bag of their best offerings for the week that people can pick up, some offer home delivery, and some, notably Early Morning Farm and Stick and Stone Farm, bring their harvests to the Farmers Market. Early Morning operates on a system that allows everyone to take as much food as they can use for most crops, although there are some limits on labor-intensive harvests.
Several things have happened at once to allow for this change in the way many people choose to eat. First, thanks in part to lobbying by dieticians, nutritionists, organic farmers, animal rights activists, and environmentalists, more Americans are finally becoming conscious about what they eat and making a serious attempt to eat local and organic. The attempt to reduce the flow of pesticides, pollutants, and animal abuse in the food market has begun to drive many consumers' food choices: thus sparking demand for organic stock and more vegetarian products in food stores. Books like Michael Pollan's bestselling In Defense of Food and previously, The Omnivore's Dilemma, helped to popularize these ideas and bring them to a larger audience. And in this region, a group of farmers, some from the Agriculture school at Cornell, launched their own farms in recent years, and then formed a collective called Full Plate Farm that has allowed them to grow beyond their previous boundaries.
"The collective makes use more accessible to more people, and allows more people to participate," said Thompson. "Working together gives everyone a much better feeling than working on our own."
Working together has also allowed the group to apply for funding it wouldn't have been eligible for otherwise. The Co-operative Extension is handling local donations, which have been made by Ithaca Health Alliance, GreenStar, and Unicef. How many shares the farms are able to offer are directly related to how many donations they are able to raise, which is why fundraising efforts are so crucial, and why the group has teamed up with area chefs and vineyards to host a series of Harvest Dinners to raise money for the Healthy Food for All program.
The Harvest Dinners draw inspiration from Outstanding in the Field, a business scheme that was the brilliant brainchild of sand artist Jim Denevan, a former model who realized there was serious capital potential in intersecting the fine dining market with the local organic food craze. His idea was to go to a certain area, find the best local food and wine, craft a menu based on the finest ingredients, set up a long table in a nearby field, farm, barn, cave, beach, or forest, and, at a long table set with fine china and wineglasses, invite the diners to eat, meet, and greet with the farmers and winemakers. At these dinners, which can cost upward of $200 a plate, the winemakers pour the wine and the farmers give short lectures on their crops, to which they are greeted with voracious applause. The business scheme was an intense, immediate success, and Outstanding in the Field has been on the road for the last several years bringing local food to people who can afford to splurge for an expensive, outdoor, fine dining experience.
In Ithaca, however, the entire venture became a local do-good project, with all of the vineyards and restaurants donating their time and product to pull off the events, and all proceeds benefiting the Healthy Food for All programs. Participating restaurants are The Hazelnut Kitchen, Willow, Watercress, and Just a Taste, whose chefs have entirely volunteered their time. Participating vineyards are Atwater, Treleaven, Silver Thread, and Bet the Farm.
The Healthy Food for All program is a way to ensure that the bounty of the harvests extend to multiple socio-economic classes - that these are not pet farms for the elite, but vital community hubs that can feed everyone. Low income shares are handled in numerous ways - low income families can sometimes use food stamps, pay in installments, or work off part or all of their share. "We're not giving food away," Nathaniel said, "and many low income families end up being some of our most dedicated members." The co-op offers classes for low income shareholders as well, to teach them how to cook with vegetables and make the most use of their bounty, while the collective posts helpful recipes online.
Remembrance is also involved with running food shares down to New York City. I asked Thompson, if given infinite financial resources and labor, would the CSA production model be capable of sustaining many more people than just the current members? For example, could you feed everyone this way, even the entire state? "Yes," he said, "but we need more farmers. There's no doubt the land can produce, and the market right now is not a problem. We need more people who want to get involved with what we're doing, which is really something extraordinary."