Subject: Re: looking for information

From: "Dori Green" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 05:56:53 EST

Let's also keep in mind that we're dealing with farms, not factories -- and 
that's one of the big philosophical differences between CSAs and factory 
farming!

That _is_ one of my greatest challenges as the CSA facilitator -- educating 
members into the reality that I can plant potatoes that should give a 
certain amount of return, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get that exact 
return!  People seem to think these days that farmers sit in an office and 
fill out an order form just as a supermarket produce manager does.

I send a list of available items to shareholders every month, and they can 
order each week's items from that.  They also have the choice of accepting a 
plain old "farmer's choice" collection; most people prefer ordering.  Prices 
are set to match or be a little bit below supermarket prices for the same 
items (commercial, not organically-grown).  I get those prices by good 
old-fashioned industrial espionage == walking through the produce department 
with a notebook and pencil.  It isn't like it's proprietary information.

I also don't try to grow everything myself.  I've put together quite the 
little farmer's alliance in my area.  The guy down on the river farm is 
growing our corn and pumpkins using his draft team for harvesting, the guy 
with the huge store and u-pick farm is doing our peppers and horticultural 
beans.  This year I'm putting in our own strawberries for the first time, 
just because the lady with the u-pick farm retired last year and isn't doing 
it any more.

I've done my pricing this way because people around here want to see the 
direct apples-to-apples price comparison.  They're very suspicious of 
anything "new" or hinting of "communism".  Relationships give us 
credibility. <G>

Related topic -- it might be easier this month to recruit people who are 
willing to take a chance on a local CSA, and people might more easily see 
how and why we're important to them.  It was just on the news that truckers 
are protesting the skyrocketing price of diesel and threatening to park 
their rigs.  This means that prices in the supermarket will go through the 
roof.

I have the land available to grow for 100 families this year, but I'm only 
accepting 35 garden co-op members because I can work full-time off the farm 
and still harvest five shareholder packets every day.

My mesclun-under-lights will be ready for cutting next week, and the freezer 
still needs to be reduced before the rhubarb sprouts.  But lots of my 
neighbors are going to be strongly affected by the trucker protest.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm
Corning, NY

http://www.ic.org/agrove

Intentional Community with local and long-distance members
Chemical-free fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers
Dairy and pack and draft goats
Free-range chickens, ducks, and geese (watch where you step)
Affordable housing cooperative
Regional farmer's marketing cooperative
Partnerships
Dried herbs and American-grown Black Tea by mail-order

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From: Jayne Walker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 10:39:38 -0500

THANKS YOU DORI
What a wonderful way to maintain sustainable community. And you are
right about the time farmers have to do paperwork, value added,
incentive driven production and organizing....especially if the price of
food is suppose to be "cheap".

Record keeping does help us to do our own research and share data with
one another when most of the universities are doing research on genetics
and for chemicals grown crops!...
 
***************************************************
"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be 
  those who cannot read and write,
  but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn"

Jayne Leatherman Walker
Ndibendaagwaz, an Eco-Learning Center
10277 E. Bingham Road
Traverse City, MI 49684-9551
email: [email-masked]