NEWFOUNDLAND: MARKLAND

by Cathy Smallwood

Imagine parsley, dill, and coriander, bunches of beets and carrots, bush beans, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower, some new potatoes, tomatoes, peas, and zucchini – all in a box 20" x 12" x 10" deep. Each week Cathy Young and Ted Walsh prepare approximately 15 such cartons of fresh vegetables and herbs grown on their land near Markland, Newfoundland. From the farm, they are transported to their house in St. John’s, about a 90-minute drive away, to be picked up. As most of their customers know each other and live nearby, it’s a chance to stop and have a cup of tea, relax, and chat with friends.

"Doing the boxes", as Cathy refers to it, starts in early September and continues until nearly Christmas. "What goes in depends mainly on what is being harvested in the field, or what has been stored in the root cellar." They have only had one or two requests for "no turnips" or "no broccoli", but if someone is on a special diet they will try to accommodate their need for "extra carrots" or "Swiss chard".

"People are cautious of new things," says Cathy. "It took a while to sell cylindrical beets. They were used to the round ones, and the tubular ones looked ‘right queer’." But once customers realized they were easier to cut up for pickles, the beets caught on. Cathy and Ted farm about 10 of the 70 acres they own, with some additional land in hay.

The only help they have on a regular basis is from Cathy’s brother Chris, who lives near the farm. Sometimes customers will come out to help with the harvest of potatoes, pick a pail of currants, or do some weeding. Cathy jokes about the fog in St. John’s and adds, "The townie folk like to get out to the country and enjoy a bit of fresh air and sunshine!"

When they started farming in 1974, nobody knew what to do with romaine lettuce. Now it is one of their most popular crops, so over the years they have adjusted the quantity to meet the demand. The two restaurants and health food store they deliver to twice weekly would take more, but Cathy feels they’ve reached their own work limit. Even though both work full time, they manage to keep their regular customers supplied with 25-pound sacks of potatoes, turnips and carrots through the winter.

While their produce is not certified, it is organic. Many people buy from Cathy and Ted because they don’t use chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Then there are those who like their produce because it’s "like what used to be grown", and it "tastes right good, right sweet."

NOVA SCOTIA: SUNSET GARDEN

by Elizabeth Irving

For three seasons, Norbert and Uta Kungl of Sunset Garden have been providing four buying groups with organic produce. They also sell their produce at the Halifax Farmers’ Market (their main source of income) and to several retail stores and a restaurant.

The Kungls grow 8.5 acres of vegetables on their 60-acre farm near Bramber, N.S., situated about 100 km from Halifax. They strive for as much variety as possible, now offering more than 60 vegetables to their customers.

Three of the buying groups are located in or near Halifax, while the fourth is in a community closer to the Kungls’ farm. A total of 65 families buy produce from the Kungls through the four buying groups.

Because the buying group members are not shareholders, as in some CSA models, Norbert does not get a lump sum of money prior to planting to help with startup costs. Every spring, he borrows to get the crops in, and pays the debt off as soon as money starts rolling in from sales. The delivery season typically goes from late May or early June until the end of October.

Norbert and Uta provide order forms for each family to use each week. These are filled out and mailed back to him in time for the weekly baskets to be made up. Along with the order forms, each family sends a cheque for the basket they have most recently received. Because preparation of the individual baskets of produce is time-consuming, there is a $2 delivery charge for each one every week.

Norbert delivers the baskets for each buying group to a central drop-off point. A new order form comes with each individual order.

In November, weekly deliveries stop but customers are encouraged to come to the Kungls’ stall at the Farmers’ Market to get their organic produce. This winter, as an experiment, Norbert is going to offer monthly deliveries of storage vegetables to the buying groups.

Since the farm is so far from Halifax, Norbert and Uta find it difficult to involve their customers in the growing process. They hold a very popular and successful barbecue every fall to meet the customers and let them see where their produce comes from and how it’s grown.

Norbert and Uta’s unique operation was the subject of a recent Harrowsmith article ("Field of Greens" by Susan Rogers, No. 109, May-June, 1993).

QUÉBEC: LA GÉNÉREUSE

by Alain Blondin

What first struck me upon seeing La Généreuse, a community supported farm near Sherbrooke in the Québec Eastern Townships, was the diversity of products and activities available. Owner Francine Lemay puts a lot of energy into this project.

She offers over a dozen of the most popular vegetables that will grow here, plus raspberries, strawberries, apples and poultry. There are also greenhouses for getting an early start on tomatoes, cucumbers and such.

To supplement her own crops, Francine offers some food from other local farmers and even imports a few things that will not grow here like citrus or avocado.

All this food goes to feed the fifty families that are members here. Each family pays $250 at the beginning of the season as down payment for all it will need in the coming year.

The needs are established for each family ahead of time. For example, a given family may require 200 pounds of potatoes, 100 pounds of carrots, 50 pounds of onions, and so on. Any balance due for produce received beyond the value of $250 is spread out over the year, typically in monthly payments.

Most of the members are from the urban Sherbrooke area; of the rest, some are rural, and others come from as far away as the Montreal or Québec City regions.

It all started in 1980 when Francine and her husband bought an abandoned 200-acre farm outside the little town of Sandhill and began selling raspberries. People started asking if they had other produce to sell. The Lemays decided to expand their production and fulfill those needs.

La Généreuse now has 40 acres under cultivation and is continuing to grow and diversify. Francine thinks she could handle twice as many members as the 50 she now has. Although she is now widowed, she manages her enterprise with only one full-time and one part-time employee and seasonal help. Some members help in the harvesting, mainly on a pick-it-yourself basis.

Any surplus is sold to organic food stores or through her own little food store located on the farm. La Généreuse has its own label, recognized by the O.C.I.A. Francine points out that the way she markets her produce gives her financial stability and avoids waste in the case of overproduction.

She can supply members with many products year-round thanks to her cold storage rooms. Her annual newsletter lets people know what they can expect to find at any time of the year.

There is also a social calendar. Harvest Day is held in early August, La Fête des Fleurs (the flower festival) occurs in the spring and there are sleigh rides in winter. Farm visits are welcome anytime, a few cottages can be rented and there is a summer camp for children.

As if this weren’t enough, there is also a private school on the premises with a regular academic program, now in its second year.

It is obvious from all this that Francine Lemay sees far and sees big, anticipating that community supported farms can go beyond feeding people to serve as functioning, sustainable social models.

ONTARIO: HILLVIEW FARM

by Joan Smith

Community shared agriculture was never part of our lives until we went through our ‘mid-farm crisis’ . Up until the early '80s, my husband John and I had tried to be ‘real’ farmers, but life was getting crazier and crazier. Nothing made sense.

The first and major problem was an ever-growing farm debt. We felt that we could have no control over our farming direction as long as every waking moment revolved around paying the monthly bank loan. So with great pain and lots of luck we set about paying off the bank. And we did it!

Our second concern was our farming methods. They just didn’t sit well. Our main goal had always been and still is to provide our family with the healthiest of life and yet we had been duped into believing bigger was better and more efficient – thus chemical use was inevitable. Fortunately at this crisis stage of our life, two organic farming groups ran weekend seminars which gave us the courage and incentive to break away from the accepted norm in farming.

The third area we needed to re-assess was our marketing system. After an unhappy year selling at the Peterborough farmers’ market, we happened on community supported agriculture. The philosophy appealed to us and so we set about searching for our first guinea pigs (customers!). Fortunately we were able to get names from a local organic veggie farmer who was going out of business. Our brochures were mailed out and placed in offices of local chiropractors, naturopaths and health food stores. After poring over a workbook put out by Indian Line Farm CSA in Pennsylvania, we determined that our 1.5-acre garden would feed 20 shareholder families.

For each share we now charge $300, up from $270 in 1991, and in return our customers get 1/20 of the garden veggies, picked, packed and delivered to their door once a week. We make four rural and six urban dropoffs on Mondays and ten urban ones on Thursdays. Along with the veggies, we include a newsletter four or five times a season, with an update on the garden, occasionally a recipe (often passed on by our members) and hot tips (cut the cornworms from the cob before cooking).

Our veggies are delivered in white pails, four-quart baskets and plastic bags. The mesh bags used to hold bulk items as well as other packaging materials are returned in the empty pails the next week when we bring fresh vegetables.

Although maps to our farm and verbal invitations are issued, not many members come out here except during our grand cider fest at the close of the season. The cider making, pot luck supper and music are very popular and great fun.

What started off as a friendly method of marketing and farming has for me evolved into a much deeper awareness of the interconnectedness of all life forms and the need to build caring communities for their nurture. Community shared agriculture is an important step in this direction.

MANITOBA: WOLSELEY COMMUNITY GARDEN

by Sandra Conway

Wolseley Community Garden is one of several CSA projects presently operating in Manitoba. It is located near Gardenton, in the southeast corner of the province. I had been gardening organically for many years and, in 1992, I decided to find a way to make a living doing what I love. At that time, I applied for and received certification with the Organic Producers' Association of Manitoba (OPAM). I began to look for a way to market my produce and happened to see an article in a community newspaper about community shared agriculture. I contacted Ray Epp, who was involved in Stewards of the Land and instrumental in setting up the first CSA project in Manitoba. While it was too late to actually set up a CSA for that season, it was the beginning of my involvement in the CSA movement.

I began by writing a letter explaining the underlying philosophy of community shared agriculture and of my intention to begin a project. I sent copies of the letter to everyone I knew with a date for a meeting. It was 40 degrees below zero the night of the meeting and the turnout was very disappointing. I decided to pursue it anyway. My next step was to develop a pamphlet which I mailed out and distributed at the CSA conference held in Winnipeg early in the spring. The applications for membership came in slowly but, by the time I planted the first seeds, I had more members than I wanted.

The members are, for the most part, residents of the Wolseley area of Winnipeg. They pick up their vegetables once a week at a location in their neighborhood. Included in their bags each week is a one-page, two-sided newsletter that includes news from the garden, a description of what herbs and vegetables are in the bag and information about how to use and preserve them, a "coming soon" section, recipes which use the food they’ve received, and any other information I need to pass on. The newspage is very popular with the members. In fact, the first thing they do when I hand them their bags is pull it out and start reading.

Presently I have a little less than three quarters of an acre in use with another half acre available to me. I plant very intensively using Eliot Coleman’s system. This relatively small piece of land is easily feeding more than seventy people and supplying one small restaurant with edible flowers and some greens. Members were promised a share of 35 vegetable crops and about 15 different herbs. The weather in Manitoba has been pretty lousy this year. We had a very cold spring – frost 14 times in May – and the wettest summer in recorded history. In spite of that, only a few vegetables did really poorly. Generally, the membership has been delighted with the quality, quantity and variety of produce they have received.

Members are encouraged to work in the garden but it is not mandatory. I decided not to have lower prices for people who do choose to work in the garden for two reasons. First, I do not want the hassle of keeping track of people’s time nor do I want to have to lean on people who are not fulfilling their obligations. Secondly, I feel that it should be a labor of love and for that to happen, it has to be freely chosen. If it is otherwise, it does not benefit the member or the garden. All that aside, though, I have had a lot of help in the garden from both members and friends. At the most crucial times – during transplanting and when the weeds looked as if they would win – people always showed up to help.

Members have had access to eggs, strawberries, raspberries and honey I pick up from other organic producers. They can also order chickens, lamb and pork through me. I have been offering some processed foods like jams, herb vinegars and syrups which I make from ingredients grown organically or picked in the wild. I have been selling these things as quickly as I can produce them and intend to expand this part of the project next year.

Initially, I intended to have three gatherings during the season. We had a Meet-the-Garden potluck early in the season. Another was planned for mid-August but the flooding and burgeoning mosquito population caused it to be cancelled. Hopefully, we’ll be able to meet socially once more before the end of the season.

A number of options are being considered in terms of the legal structure of the garden. This year it is loosely set up as a non-profit venture with me receiving a wage. Other possibilities include a co-operative or a sole proprietorship. These options will be discussed at a planning meeting being held early in September.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the first year of this venture. It has been a lot of work but a lot of fun too. I am doing what I want to do and that is worth much to me. The major problem for me this year has been that I set the share prices far too low. I knew this when I set them, but I felt I had to at least be in the same ball park as the one Manitoba CSA project that was in existence when I started out. Of course no two CSAs are alike and what I offer is very different. I made three options available to people: a small share for $125, a medium share for $200 and a large share for $260. This turned out to be ridiculously low for what members received. I intend to continue with the three options but will increase the cost of each option by at least $75. I have informed the members of the increases and have had no objections. In fact, several members suggested my raising the prices mid-season!

When I started out this year, my intention was to start with 25 members and double the number next year. I have changed my mind about that. I will be limiting the number of memberships to thirty next year. I like the intimacy, the community, of a small group. It is also as much as I can handle alone. And I don’t want to spend my time "managing" others, I want to work in the garden. So, instead of expanding the community garden, I have decided to supply another restaurant with greens and edible flowers and to expand my food processing efforts to include markets beyond the garden membership.

SASKATCHEWAN: H.O.H. SHARED FAMILY FARM

by Karol Okolita

Near Lipton, Saskatchewan, approximately 50 miles from Regina, is the H.O.H. Shared Family Farm. H.O.H. is a three-family farm made up of parents Gordon and Janet Huber, daughter Karol and her husband Greg Okolita and family, and daughter Korine and her husband Clarence Hilliar and family. We are a new community shared agriculture project this year. In the past, we had approximately three acres of land involved in a market garden. This year we have utilized fifteen acres, dedicated to the CSA concept.

This project is new not only to us but to Saskatchewan as well! Situated in a province that has been plagued in past years with poor grain crops, we found our farm facing financial crisis. Although we were always diversified, we looked at ways of further expanding our efforts. As we already raised poultry, beef and pork, we felt we could combine these efforts with CSA farming.

Regina had a strong group of individuals interested in seeing a CSA project happen in their city. They became our community co-ordinators and we became their farmers! We joined forces and sold 70 shares in our project. Our prices were set at $200 per full share and $110 per half share. Our contract would supply 32 types of vegetables to be delivered over a 14-week period, once weekly to depots in their area. It was made clear to all shareholders that they were "sharing the risk" that may occur with poor weather both in growing and harvesting.

As the farmers, we picked the types of vegetables we felt comfortable growing. We have had some requests for specialty vegetables that we may include next year. We also added a wide-range optional purchase package that included chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, pork, beef and strawberries. All but the berries were grown on our farm. This year we included 750 chickens, 100 turkeys and 24 ducks and geese which we slaughter and prepare for sale ourselves. In between the gardening we find PLENTY to keep ourselves amused!!

The 1993 summer weather was very poor in our area. Having received approximately 20 inches of rain, light hail and early frost, this has been a very trying year to begin our CSA venture. The old 4-H Motto "Learn to do by doing" has proved very true for us. Being environmentally friendly growers, we found this year a battle of weeds and elements. But we at H.O.H. feel we are providing fresh, tasty and healthy vegetables to urban dwellers. The CSA concept is growing rapidly and we feel that it suits our operation well.

ALBERTA: HIGHWOOD SPRINGS FARM

by Don Munroe

CSA really seems to be catching on in the Calgary area.

Our CSA project is in its first year of operation. From several sharer-initiated meetings of potential growers and sharers, we ended up with eight farms (five complete and three providing specialty crops) and about 130 sharers, almost all of them urban. With the existing farms we can easily double our numbers, and other farms are looking at the idea. I believe we could manage 500 sharers next year.

Each farm and group of sharers is its own complete unit. We have an umbrella-type organizing body to provide news and gather data about farmers’ and sharers’ experiences and concerns. The number of sharers per farm ranges from under 10 to over 60.

Although we initially encouraged sharers to pick a farm close to them to reduce cross-town traffic, this has not been very successful.

Some farms depend on or encourage some labor contribution. To my knowledge, there is no price reduction for this in any of the groups.

There are no certified organic growers, although some are considering this for next year. In our initial year, the farmers decided what to grow with their knowledge of their farms. We are collecting feedback to support sharer ideas for the future.

Some farms deliver baskets to central city points for pick-up; this gives a fixed weekly harvest for the sharer. Others are a U-pick operation, allowing the sharer some choice of what to pick from what is ready.

We have not gone very far in the area of cross merchandising. Some farms are growing chickens, turkeys or cattle for their sharers. Tomatoes have been offered between farms. There is a possibility of working with strawberries, honey, grain/flour and greenhouse produce. We haven’t been actively looking for more projects lately.

There have been lots of working visits to the farms. Some have held potluck events, and more are planned for the fall.

Will Bilozir, of Highwood Springs Farm at Dewinton south of Calgary, is the grower for the group I belong to. This year, our first in operation, about 60 members, mostly urban, paid $250 upfront. Each shareholder was expected to put in one day’s work over the growing season, and this averaged out, although some members did more than their share and others less.

Every week, members picked up their basket of fresh produce at one of four drop-off points in Calgary. Will grew a variety of vegetables on about 2.5 acres this year, and the delivery season went well into September. In the future, he hopes to have storage vegetables available and organize social occasions at the farm for shareholders.

This was a challenging growing year. Our initial approach was that this was not about cheap food. We seem to be getting good support from our sharers and appreciation for the valiant efforts of our farmers.

BRITISH COLUMBIA: LOFSTEDT BIO-DYNAMIC FARM

by Joanne Van Allen

Lofstedt Bio-Dynamic Farm is located five kilometers south of Kaslo, in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia.

In 1992, after the farm had been in operation for eight years, the core members of Lofstedt Farm implemented a CSA program. Before that, George and Bridget Baumann had subsisted on the sale of root crops to markets in Nelson and Vancouver.

Now, in 1993, the Lofstedt CSA program is sponsored by 27 shareholders who pay $450 to $500, depending on income, for a ten-month vegetable share. The share is designed to feed a family of two adults and two small children. Deciding share size and cost is difficult because of varied eating habits and because the CSA is based on the economic premise that people shouldn’t pay for the food itself but for the true cost of growing it. As well, shareholders can order flour, cream of wheat, whole grains, meat and strawberries. Lofstedt hopes to increase its membership to 100 shares.

Two-thirds of the CSA members live in the city of Nelson, a 50-minute drive away, while the other third come from the village of Kaslo. Lofstedt has weekly distributions from June through October. The growers harvest what is ready on the distribution day and divide it amongst the CSA members. In the winter (November to March), distributions are every two months. Shareholders come between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., weigh out their produce and take it home with them. From 7 to 7:30, people can take whatever surplus is left.

CSA members are invited to attend three annual farm festivals: Easter, St. John’s and Michaelmas. Most recently, shareholders came out for a day of apple dunking, treasure hunts, donkey rides, farm walks and an informal meeting. One shareholder wrote a few days later: "We haven’t had so much healthy, wholesome fun in ages." Festivals are one of the many rewards of the CSA program.