Community, Connection and Really Good Food!

“Vote with your food dollars.”

“Keep your money in the local economy.”

“Know your farmer, know your food.”

Are you familiar with any of these phrases?  What about “Sign-Up Now?”  Or “Join now so you don’t miss out!”  Hey, those are my lines and we’ve been using them a lot as we are trying to encourage people to sign up for CSA shares before the season starts in three short weeks!  “Miss out on what?  It’s just vegetables, what’s the big deal about CSA anyway?"  Does any of this “support your local food system” talk even matter? 

Andrea B. sampling grapes  (photo from localthirty.com)

Earlier this year, my friend (ok, we’ve only met once, but she’s awesome) Andrea Bemis released a film called Local Thirty.  This was one of the main films featured at Fairshare CSA Coalition’s Food and Farms Film Fest this past March.  While many documentaries about our food system over the past 10-12 years have been very informative and brought important truths to light, some have been pretty heavy and intense!  This film was different.  It was about food, forming connections, and finding a sense of “home.”  It focused on exploring your local food system and the positive impact that can have on our lives and our meals.  It was a welcome relief to watch a film about our food system that made me laugh, chuckle, yet still pushed me to think about my own food choices.

Andrea B. is a real live farmer who grows vegetables at the base of Mt Hood in Oregon along with her husband, Taylor.  In addition to farming, Andrea B also writes a blog called Dishing Up the Dirt, which is also the title of her cookbook!  If you’ve followed my CookingWith the Box articles on our blog over the past few CSA seasons, you’ll likely recognize her blog as I have shared many of her recipes along the way.  It all started back in September 2018 when Andrea B, her husband Taylor, and their farm crew (Adam and Rachel) decided to challenge themselves to source all of their ingredients from within a 200 mile radius.  They had 10 cheat foods each (eg coffee, lemons, black pepper, etc), but aside from those foods they only ate the things they could source within 200 miles.  Why would anyone do something like this?  They didn’t really have an end goal or mission they were hoping to achieve.  They used this time as a framework for learning and discovering their local food system.  What treasures (both food and people) were they missing?  It was about finding more of a sense of “home.” 

Andrea B with a freshly caught tuna!
(photo from localthirty.com0

As they prepared for and lived out the month of September, they had to do their research to find some of the ingredients they didn’t produce themselves.  Research for Andrea B went beyond the internet, she actually left the farm to visit people she’d never met before so she could learn more about what they were doing.  She had the opportunity to stomp grapes at a vineyard, take a wild fishing trip off the coast to catch tuna, visit a dairy farm and drink milk right from the cow, forage for wild mushrooms and walk the pastures on a neighbor’s cattle ranch.  And what became of all of this?

The final producer meal (photo from localthirty.com)

Here is Andrea B’s conclusion in her own words:  “Eating locally for me is about discovering and celebrating what we have, not mourning what we don't. It's about strangers becoming friends, and learning more about our landscape and the place we call home. When we start looking around and talking to each other, it becomes evident that we just have so much……When I first set out on a month long challenge to only eat ingredients produced within 200 miles of my home I had no idea how transforming that experiment would be. Eating the foods I found and prepared rooted me deeper into my home. They were the flesh of plants I touched and animals I knew. This made me feel more alive, wild and human. I found out that eating locally is about discovering and celebrating a bounty that is all our own and letting it shape a little bit of who we are. It's about joy.”

So does it really matter if you know your farmer?  Does it matter if you eat food from local sources?  Does the story behind the food you eat mean anything?  Does being part of a CSA or shopping at the farmers’ market impact your life in any way that‘s different than shopping at the grocery store?  Well for some people, perhaps these things don’t really matter.  But for me…yes, it matters and yes, it’s important.  Andrea B. is right, it’s about joy and forming connections. 

Food is political, food is social justice and injustice, food is linked to our environment and our economy.  But food is also relational.  It’s a bridge to bring our lives together.  You just don’t know what treasures you might discover and what stories you will unveil when you take the time to look.  Connection.  Whether we know it or not, we all need connection.  Every time you learn a little more about your food sources, you’re allowing a little piece of someone else’s world to become part of yours. This does bring joy, appreciation, respect and understanding.  It causes you to think outside of yourself and your own experiences while at the same time, bringing some stinkin’ delicious food to your tables!  Yes, I’m convinced that food tastes better when you know the story about where it came from.

The fertile soil and beautiful fields of Harmony Valley Farm

So back to the original question, does any of this “support your local food system” talk even matter?  I believe the answer is “Yes.”  At the very least, if you like to eat good food I guarantee you’ll find some of your best ingredients when you look locally.  The other part of this “Yes” is the community piece.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, but this isn’t a one-way concept.  We need the community to support our farm, but the community also needs to be supported by those producing food!  In the end, we all have a part in this thing we call our local food system, or in Andrea B’s words, the place we call home. 

In closing, I’ll leave you with one last message.  Our deliveries start in just three short weeks, so Join Now So You Don’t Miss Out!  If you’re looking to add a new dimension as well as some joy and really great food to your meals, we hope you’ll not only join us for the 2019 CSA season but encourage you to see what other treasures you can find within your local food system this year.

---Farmer/Chef Andrea

NOTE:  Go to  www.localthirty.com for more information about Andrea Bemis’s documentary and how to watch the whole thing.  It’s only 46 minutes long, so make some snacks and kick back to watch it this weekend!

The Local Thirty..30 days, 200 miles

By Andrea Yoder

For those of you who have been members with our farm for awhile and read the newsletter pretty regularly, you may already know that I first came to the farm back in 2007 as the summer farm chef.  I knew very little, much less than I realized at the time.  I came because my two favorite things to cook were fish and vegetables, the latter being the focus of my attention when I accepted the position.  I didn’t know much about what it meant to be certified organic or why I would come to value eating certified organic food, but I was eager to learn and accepted the challenge.  I don’t recall Richard every telling me that all the food I purchased and prepared for the crew had to be 100% certified organic, but it seemed a bit contradictory for it to be any other way.  So I raised the bar and strived to achieve it with each menu I planned and each purchase I made. 

Chef Andrea getting ready to process beets.

But that wasn’t the only thing I had to figure out.  There was this thing called ‘seasonal eating’ that also factored into my cooking.  It snowed the first week I was here, so there wasn’t much coming out of the fields.  No worries, there was a pallet of “extras” waiting for me in the cooler.  Carrots, sunchokes, black radishes, beets….notice I didn’t mention potatoes.  That’s right, I cooked for several months without a single potato.  As I kicked off the season, I quickly learned that I really enjoyed the challenge of seasonal cooking and worked really hard to incorporate as many of the vegetables we were growing into the meals I was preparing for the crew.  Sourcing certified organic ingredients wasn’t too hard, but it did mean that there were some ingredients that just weren’t available for me to use.  Somewhere along the way I also began to value sourcing ingredients locally.  Maybe it was the fun of trading with other vendors at the farmers’ market.  Maybe it was the experience of going over to our friends’ farm, Jim & Phyllis, to help them catch the chickens they had raised for us and then helping Elizabeth butcher them.  I valued each and every chicken that I prepared that summer and not a morsel went to waste.  Along the way Richard challenged me to take the concept of a CSA Cheese Share and turn it into a reality.  I called a lot of cheese producers, asked them a lot of questions and was finally able to narrow down the list of farmers that met our qualifications.  Of course I wanted to make sure we knew what we were distributing, so I visited each producer so I could see for myself that they were the real thing….and they were.  Over the course of time my diet and outlook on food has changed.  I can’t say that I know the origin of every single ingredient in my kitchen, but I can usually identify the majority of what we eat and I continue to challenge myself to keep searching. 

Andrea Bemis, from her website dishingupthedirt.com

Andrea Bemis is a vegetable farmer, along with her husband Taylor, at their small farm in Oregon.  She also has a food blog and a cookbook, both titled Dishing Up the Dirt.  I follow her blog regularly and have adapted, referenced and shared quite a few of her vegetable-centric, simple recipes over the past several years.  Earlier this year she announced a challenge that she called “The Local Thirty.”  For the month of September Andrea and Taylor challenged themselves to source all their food within 200 miles for 30 days.  She did allow herself 10 “cheat items,” partly because there are some very enjoyable foods that were part of her diet that can’t be sourced locally (like coffee and chocolate) and because the challenge wasn’t about deprivation as much as it was becoming more informed about the foods she was consuming.  She identified “three pillars” that are the most important considerations when choosing food.  These include wellness (Is it good for the body?), sustainability (Is it good for the planet?) and community (Is it good for other people?)  The closer you are to the source of your food, the more opportunity you have to know more about the people who are producing and/or distributing the food as well as the intricacies related to how it’s being produced.  At the end of her announcement about her personal challenge, she stated “For the 30 days of September I’m going to source all of my ingredients from a 200 mile radius of where I live.  I’m hoping that in doing so I will find a more grounded sense of place and a community of folks that I never knew existed.”

Well, the month of September is officially over and so is Andrea’s challenge.  I applaud her for keeping up with this project in the midst of the growing season, but she did it and managed to document her experiences intermittently on her blog as well as more frequently on Instagram.  In one post she commented "As we navigate through finding local resources for some of our favorite ingredients I'm learning that this month isn't going to be perfect. But that's okay. We are meeting so many amazing folks who are making our community a better place. And the community is reaching farther than our tiny corner of the world as I get to be a part of so many of your local journeys as well." She recently posted on her blog about her experience of getting to go tuna fishing.  In this post she commented “When I began really exploring where my food comes from, I started to realize that this is not so much about the ingredients for me anymore.  It’s about these people (most often strangers) and how little pieces of their world make up mine.”  Her comment struck me.  She’s totally right.

Our Dane County Farmers' Market crew!

There are many reasons to eat locally, we’ve all heard the lingo.  “Keep your food dollars local.”  “Know your farmer, know your food.”  If you’re curious about your food and your community, or if you really just want to have a source for the best tasting food, local is the way to go.  In this region we are so blessed with a rich supply of really great food!  If we take a little time to look around, it’s easy to find some awesome people making some really great food that is special.  Special because it’s made with care, passion and sincerity.  Special because you get to connect with the people behind it.  At our recent Harvest Party I had a conversation with a member about the beauty of an egg laid by a happy chicken on pasture.  Grocery store eggs, even most organic ones, are not the same.  She asked me “how do I get these eggs.”  My simple answer, “You need a supplier.  You have to talk to farmers, find someone who’s doing it right and get on their list.” 

When we sit down to eat, we really enjoy eating chicken from our friend Gretchen, roasted vegetables from our farm tossed with sunflower oil produced by our friends at Driftless Organics.  We enjoy Castle Rock cream from the Kostka family in our morning cup of coffee, roasted locally by our friends at Kickapoo Coffee.  I’m not trying to be high and mighty here, just agreeing with Andrea B. that it’s really cool to be able to identify where my food comes from and to think about and appreciate the people who work hard to bring it to my table.  It’s much more satisfying than opening a package from afar and not knowing much if anything about what I’m putting into my body.  If we do choose to eat food grown outside our local area, there's opportunities to source these things carefully as well.  For instance, Frog Hollow Farm in California, one of our fruit share producer partners, also makes olive oil with the olives they produce on their farm.  Marian Farms, also in California, is my source for raisins and almonds.  While these foods can't be sourced locally, I appreciate the opportunity to at least purchase them directly from the producers, especially because I have had the chance to talk to them personally and want to support what they're doing!  Food is personal, at least I think it should be.

While Andrea didn’t intend to do this in the beginning, she actually connected with some filmmaker friends who traveled with her and documented some of her experiences associated with her challenge.  She’s turning it into a documentary that will hopefully be done before the end of the year!  I look forward to hearing more about her experiences, reflections, etc.  In the meantime, I encourage each of you to take a look in your backyard and see what you can find.  You might be surprised by what you find. If you already have some sources for awesome local foods, share them with your friends and neighbors so they too can support these local producers and together we can do our best to build a strong community and a strong food system!  Of course, along the way you'll glean nourishment for your soul and some really great meals!

Changes in the Marketplace: Where Do We Fit?

By Farmer Richard de Wilde

Many of you will have heard by now that Amazon has bid $13.7 billion to buy Whole Foods Market (WFM).  Within the industry and news in general, this deal has put quite the focus on the future of food buying and many are speculating about how this will change the face of grocery retail, specifically related to perishables.  Only time will tell just what is in store for consumers and producers like us.  Some of you may be wondering why we are even writing about this business deal?  Well, Harmony Valley Farm has been growing produce for WFM stores in the Midwest region for over 25 years.  We have a long and mutually beneficial relationship with them, so we are concerned about the impact this buy out will have on our farm. 

WFM purchases large quantities of selected vegetables we agree to grow for them based on preseason commitments and negotiated pricing.  They have had remarkable follow through and they stay true to their commitments throughout the season.  They are reliable, consistent, and they pick-up at our farm twice per week.  The trucks that deliver product from the distribution center outside of Chicago to their stores in the Twin Cities are mostly empty on their return trip, so they stop and pick up produce at our farm and other regional farms as a back haul.  Their consistent volume purchases have allowed us to obtain efficiencies of production we do not have with small volume orders.  If we have a large amount of a crop available in excess of commitments and we need help finding a home for it, they have stepped up to the plate and helped us out so product doesn’t go to waste.  Our CSA members do benefit, unknowingly, from these efficiencies.  For example some crops, such as celeriac, would be very inefficient for us to produce for only a few CSA boxes and a few pounds for farmer’s market and local wholesale accounts.  We are able to plant a larger quantity that will meet our commitments to WFM and leave plenty to supply our CSA boxes and smaller volumes for other accounts.

WFM has eleven regional buying centers across the country.  This allows them to buy and offer local foods in any given region!  That is considered a very inefficient system by the mega players.  If Amazon chooses to establish a national buying center to replace the regional centers, we may not be able to compete with the mega-farms.  If that’s the way things go, what will happen to the local products?  Will anyone ask where things are coming from or how they are being produced?  

WATCH: Buy Local with Harmony Valley Farm Bio Video

One of the strategies we’ve chosen to employ on our farm is building diversified markets.  We grow vegetables for wholesale distributors, retail outlets, restaurants, etc.  A small percentage of what we grow is for our farmer’s market customers.  Of course, we also grow crops for you, our CSA members.  Over the past few years we’ve shared with you our concerns about the trend in declining CSA membership, both within our own membership as well as CSAs across the country.  When we saw our CSA shares trending down, we were able to increase our sales in other parts of our business.  WFM was our largest account to respond to this shift and our sales to them increased significantly, allowing us to maintain our production and keep our business stable.  WFM is not the largest player in the produce ring, but they have been a stable revenue source for our farm for many years!  Yes, we do wonder, will that change with this buy out?  At this point, honestly we don’t know.  What generally happens with similar buy outs, involving big players in a competitive market, is workers and suppliers get squeezed to lower costs and increase profits.  We are not willing to squeeze our good employees and/or compromise the integrity of our business to accommodate a corporate buy out!  Of the many articles circulating in the news, little is being said about the impact this buy out may have on the many mid-sized organic farms WFM has nurtured for so many years. 

Our farm has been doing fine and, despite significant crop losses last fall due to weather, we are back in the game this year.  But we certainly realize the game is changing and knew this even before Amazon’s buy out of WFM.  This situation actually brings a conversation to the forefront that has been brewing for years.  What is the future of food buying?  What do consumers want, and how will these needs and wants be met?  In the case of the WFM buy out, just what will WFM customers get out of this? Maybe they will benefit from a more convenient shopping experience.  They can walk-in with a list, place their order and the groceries will be packed while the customer enjoys lunch at the deli.  Or better yet, order on-line and have your groceries delivered to your door!  What do consumers value and what will they vote for with their food purchases?  Folks, please realize your food choices as consumers directly impact the future of our farm and our food system as a whole.   Ultimately, our future and the future of our food industry is in your hands.  

Back in February, we had the opportunity to meet with most of the produce buyers we do business with, including one I have been working with for over 40 years.  This guy not only knows the ins and outs of the wholesale produce world, but he also desires to do the right thing and does his part through his purchasing to build connections with growers and pay a fair price for the produce he’s sourcing.  In the course of our conversation we discussed some of the elements of the “darker” side of the produce world.  He made a comment that whenever you see a low price in produce, you have to assume that at some point along the supply chain, someone was exploited.  But is that something anyone considers when they just got “a good deal?”  I don’t want to focus on the negative side of the produce industry, rather I’d like to reinforce the idea that there are many models of producing food.  The demand for organic food in the marketplace continues to grow, and along with it the supply must also grow.  In many ways, this is a good thing regardless of the size of the farm or company producing food.  Any land that is managed by certified organic standards is land that is not being treated with harmful chemicals, planted to genetically modified crops, etc.  However, please realize that an organic certificate does not encompass all of the aspects related to producing food in a way that is beneficial for communities, local economies, the environment, workers involved in food production and more.  Yes, these are all factors that play into the bottom line.  Again it is up to the customer to decide what kind of agriculture and distribution systems we want to build and support. 

We know first-hand there is a benefit to forming a connection with those who produce your food.  We appreciate transparency in our own food both as eaters as well as producers!  We place great value on delivering fresh, nutrient dense food that tastes good, but there are so many other parts to this story.  Will convenience and low prices supersede the value and recognition needed to address and care for these other issues?  What about worker welfare, building a healthy ecosystem, supporting pollinator populations, building a strong food safety program, providing a place for your children to learn about and experience first-hand where their food comes from.  Aren’t these things also important? 

We have lost CSA and farmers’ market customers over the past few years for a variety of reasons.  We are confident that we are the best growers in the Midwest and are always striving to make improvements so we can do what we do, just better!  Will this be enough to stay in the game, or will the industrial food system win?  In future newsletters this year, we will go into more detail about some of these issues including the following:

• Do consumers value local production?  Do they want to know and develop trust with the growers producing their food? 
• Is their transparency between the producer and the consumer?  For example, is it clear how they pay and treat workers?
• How important is it to be certified organic, with verification by an independent third party?
• Will we have to do door-to-door delivery to keep our customers?
• Where does freshness and nutrition of local produce come into play?  Does it matter?
• Is it important for consumers to connect with local producers and have an opportunity to actually visit the farm, camp, tour, learn, let kids eat vegetables straight from the field?  This is a unique attribute Amazon probably can’t offer!
• Is anyone concerned about conservation of water, birds, bats and bees?  WFM tried to include that in a complicated evaluation process for producers to help guide their purchases and support growers who go above and beyond to support some of these other aspects of agriculture.  We scored the “best” rating in their system, but will this rating mean anything once Amazon enters into the picture? 

We welcome your thoughts and would like you to be part of this ongoing conversation as we examine our place and the place of other local producers in the “future of food” that meets your needs and desires.

For another take by a food pioneer we respect and admire greatly, read:

Alice Waters wants Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to ‘make a difference’ with Whole Foods

Harvest Party 2016: An Official Invitation from Your Farmers

By Farmer Richard & Andrea

     Our Harvest Party is coming up in just a little over a week! We hope you’ll join us for the festivities on Sunday, September 25...it’s going to be a lot of fun! In our late summer newsletters we’ve been talking about forming a connection with nature and learning more about the source of your food. Well…now is your chance to visit your farm and see for yourself! The festivities will start at noon and will wrap up by 5 pm...leaving enough time to journey home and tuck the kiddos in for a good night’s rest before school the next day (trust us…they’ll sleep well after an afternoon at the farm). If you’d like to make a full weekend out of it, we’d love to share our campground with you! Spend a night under the stars in our valley. Listen to the flow of the river, the croaking bullfrogs, the owls talking in the distance and maybe even a little chatter from the coyotes.
     So what’s on the agenda? Pumpkins, of course! Our field tour will end in the pumpkin patch where you will find more than enough pumpkins for everyone. We have an assortment of pumpkins including warty knuckle-heads, Jack-O-Lanterns with nice handles, and even some pie pumpkins. But before we get to the pumpkins we have a few other stops. The Harvest Party is never complete without a stop in the sweet potato field. We have been checking them and they look pretty good…but still a little small. I’m anxious to see what we find after another week of growing. We’ll have to strip the vines and dig down to find them, so be ready to get your hands dirty! We’ll make a stop in the pepper and eggplant field as well. Here you’ll have the opportunity to pick the final fruits of the season. Make sure you bring a bag to carry away your vegetable treasures! In between the peppers and pumpkins we have a beautiful field of fall carrots. If you’ve never eaten a carrot just pulled out of the ground, then you are in for a treat. You might even find some yellow and purple ones!
     We always enjoy spending time with our CSA members as we tour the fields. Over the years we’ve engaged in some very interesting conversations about farming, eating local foods, etc. This is your time to pick our brains, ask questions about the things you are seeing in the fields or anything else that’s on your mind. Several weeks ago Bobbie wrote an article about our area, referred to as The Driftless Region. We encourage you to read that article before you come to the farm and pay attention to the landscape as you approach. It truly is a unique region with beautiful landscape and some real treasures, such as the effigy mounds we found last fall on our own land!

Photo Courtesy of Sonic Love Child's Facebook Page

     We’ll have plenty of activities for you to take part in and enjoy. Sonic Love Child, a group of musicians from the Twin Cities will share their talents as they play a variety of music including American folk, classic country, vintage pop and some originals. Sandy Syburg will be here from Purple Cow Organics with his SoilMobile. We introduced you to Sandy in last week’s newsletter. We encourage you to visit him and his SoilMobile to learn more about just how important soil is to our well-being. He’ll have veggie tattoos for the kids and you can even take a selfie with his Purple Cow mascot!
     Of course we’ll have plenty of delicious food to enjoy. We’ll have some light snacks before we head to the field including our favorite Caramelized Poblano Chile & Onion Dip. We have a special batch of Watermelon Kombucha to share with you, courtesy of NessAlla. Back by popular demand, we’ll be mixing up a batch of Iced Maple Latte featuring Kickapoo Coffee, milk from Castle Rock Organic Dairy and maple syrup from Alvin Miller. After we work up an appetite in the fields, we’ll return to the home farm for a potluck! It’s always fun to see our vegetables come back to the farm in the form of delicious salads, casseroles and such prepared by our members. We’ll also be serving HVF pulled pork and a big pot of vegetarian black beans featuring some of our late summer peppers and onions.

     Over the years we’ve heard a lot of positive comments from members who’ve visited the farm. Their day at the farm has left them with fond memories of playing in the fields, interacting with the animals and enjoying picking and eating vegetables right out of the fields. Children have changed their eating habits after they have had the opportunity to form a connection with “THEIR” farm. The experience of digging in the dirt, harvesting their own food and sitting on the tractor with their farmer are formative experiences that have a lasting impact. If nothing else…Farmer Richard has 7 new ducks including 2 setting hens who have eggs that should hatch around September 20. Richard’s pretty proud of his ducks and is hoping to have some ducklings to show you at the party!

Making A Connection

By Farmer Richard

CSA Members enjoying the scenery of
'their'  farm during our Harvest Party!

     It is now official, reported in major and minor news outlets across the country…CSA farmers are losing members faster than they are being replaced with new members. We started to see a decline in our CSA membership around 2009, and unfortunately we aren’t the only farm that has seen numbers slowly slide each year.  Many thought it was the economic downturn, but overall sales of organic foods is still consistently continuing to grow each year.  More and more people are concerned about the health of their family and turning to organic.  So why the decline in CSA membership?
     We, and other CSA farmers, have been asking this question and trying to figure out what’s going on for the past few years.  One reason may be supersaturation of CSA farms offering shares.  During the past 6 to 8 years the number of new CSA farms has grown faster than the rate of new members interested in joining a CSA.  Most of the growth in CSA farms has been beginning farmers with little experience.  We have long understood that CSA farming is “graduate level” farming, not for beginners.  Growing a wide variety of crops to fill boxes over a full season requires skill and experience.  Many consumers have been alienated forever by a poor CSA experience, “All we got was kale!”  Certainly not true, but a perception from “new” CSA customers who were also new to eating “in season.”

A picture of a summer CSA box contents from Harmony Valley Farm

     Organic food has also become more available at almost all supermarkets, mostly shipped in from distant growers. The advantage for customers is they can stop in and buy a few items of their choosing for dinner without the commitment of the whole box of CSA vegetables. It is good that more acres somewhere in the world are being farmed organic, without toxic chemistry, but what about eating locally and eating in season?
     Another contributing factor to the decline in CSA may be attributed to the growth we’ve seen in farmers’ markets.  The USDA estimates farmers’ markets have doubled over the past 10 years.  While it may be convenient for customers to shop at their small neighborhood markets, this growth has not been as good for farmers.  In addition to pulling members away from choosing a CSA share, farmers are also seeing their sales at each market become diluted.  Many farmers now have to go to several markets per week to sell the same amount of produce that they used to sell at a larger, once-a-week market!

Farmer Richard digging Sweet Potatoes with CSA Members.

     Finally, as times have changed we’ve seen an influx of home delivery services that will deliver not just vegetables, but everything to your door and only what you order!  If you want to break it down even further, there are now meal delivery services that will deliver everything you need for a meal or two in one package.  It may not be “organic” and you have to ignore all the excess packaging for the service, but if you only cook a couple meals a week it may seem like a good option.
     As you can see, there are now lots of options for where and how you can purchase food!  Unfortunately some families have less time to plan and cook meals, thus they opt for choices with the highest level of convenience.  So where does CSA fit into the current picture?
Well, despite the decrease we’ve seen in our own membership over the past seven years, we still consider CSA to be beneficial to our business and the part of our business we enjoy the most.  We’re not ready to “give-up” on our CSA and don’t believe CSA is going out of style.  Despite the changes we’ve seen in the food supply over the past 7-10 years, the concept of CSA remains the same.  CSA still stands for “Community Supported Agriculture” and offers one of the most holistic approaches to sourcing food for your family.  Yes, you are supporting our farm by purchasing shares with us for the season, but it’s so much more than that.  We are part of the same community and we support each other.  As CSA members, you have direct access to your farm and the land where your food is grown. We talk to you each week through our newsletters and email communications and you can talk to us any time you’d like.  You are welcome to come to the valley where your food is grown…breathe the air, walk in the soil and experience not only the food we’re producing, but the land and area in which it is grown.  Last week Bobbie reminded us all just how special and unique our region is and we want to share this experience with you as well.

Farmer Richard showing a CSA member how to 'drive' a tractor!

     When you participate in a CSA, you have an opportunity to connect with the people and places where your food comes from.  You learn what it means to eat with the rhythms of nature and embrace the seasonality of eating.  When melons are in their peak (as they are this week), you eat melon several times a day!  In the spring you long for anything green and in the fall we can’t wait to eat rich winter squash and sweet potatoes.    
     We have seen and heard so many positive stories from members about how CSA has changed and made a positive impact on their lives.  We have many members who joined our CSA when their children were little, twenty years ago.  These kids had the opportunity to grow up as “CSA kids.”  They are now healthy adults seeking out their own CSAs and continue to ask “where does my food come from?”  For many of these kids, their first taste of vegetables was something from our farm.  Many of them visited our farm when they were youngsters.   They camped in the meadow and played in the creek, fed the animals, got to sit on the tractors, gorged on warm strawberries in the field, picked peas right off the plant and built lasting memories of their farm.   They know what “real” food tastes like, understand how to eat with the seasons, and know how to cook and prepare whole foods!  We’ve heard many stories about picky eaters who, after a visit to the farm, will now eat vegetables…but only vegetables from “their farm!”  Other members have told us they eat more vegetables and have seen positive health benefits as a result of eating out of a CSA box.  Yes, eating out of a CSA box requires time and cooking, but it also gives you an opportunity to learn new things about food, build culinary skills and gives you an opportunity to spend invaluable time cooking and eating with your family.

Farmer' Richard and Andrea with Captain Jack the dog!

     We value the connection we have with you through our partnership in CSA.  There are so many benefits beyond the actual box that come along with the CSA experience.  This is something special and unique that a supermarket or home delivery service will never be able to match