Well, we are coming into September in the third season of our CSA, and the garden is offering a real abundance!
This year has been a good growing season, for the veggies, and for us. We have developed a lot of confidence in our methods, and they have really proven themselves. So it has all been good....at least as far as the veggies go.
We are fortunate in that we get to spend some time with other Permaculture designers, (when they visit-you'll are welcome you know!) show off our work to, and learn what other folks are doing out there. So we chat about compost tea recipes, greenhouse design, the best place to get fungi spawn, or enthuse about some new cool perennial vegetable or another; all the great and exciting parts of Permaculture.
And then we ponder, and all too often get stuck on the tough one: how do we build the relationships in our communities, and among ourselves, that really embody the lasting values we profess and are so passionate about?
We are trying to figure that out ourselves, and within that how best to create a home for the CSA in current area. We are at a turning point with this question, as we have lost one of our growing areas.
This week it was confirmed to us by the folks a Camp Epworth that the gardens there were no longer going to be available to us. It is a complicated situation, but ultimately it seems a CSA just isn't something that they can support as an institution. I think that is a shame, and shortsighted, but they have their own economic and other pressures, and it's their choice, and the choice of the Green Phoenix Permaculture managers there for us to move on.
We have had a good couple of years, and have felt really supported by the community at large, and by the private landowner where we have been living and also growing, but unfortunately her land can't support a full CSA. Toby is great. She is among a growing number of private landowners (who aren't farming themselves) putting their land in conservation and trying to make it available to farmers. It is one model, and hopefully more of it will continue. We will need the farmers on the land, esp as time goes on. It is not unfortunately, in and of itself a practical model for many farmers though, as it does not have the opportunities for building equity, it usually means difficulties in housing, and usually many other difficulties as well. At it's best it can be a positive relationship between an enlightened owner, happy growers, and a well fed community. At it's worst it is a kind of return to a sort of quasi feudal model of land tenure where actual (tenant) farmers have little or no control or long term security, - and neither really does the community, in terms of food security.
So,.... we are looking for another home, and would love to see it be on a supportive non-profit landbase. It just seems like a CSA -Community Supported Agriculture- and its agriculturally supported community! would all best be served by farms that are in place by and for the community and for the long term. Farms that are affordable to the growers so that they can actually afford to grow affordable food! Just think about it- at the same time the Hudson valley region (like so many other places) is in the midst of a booming local food movement, most of the healthy locally produced food is only affordable to the privileged few. (the same ones who have driven the price of land far out of reach of any new farmer! ) It is a real dilemma. Even if a young farmer can get it together, and go into enormous debt to purchase a small farm, they are basically forced to maximize their income in order to service that debt, meaning whatever they grow is going to have to go for top dollar- hence all the NYT's success stories about all the wonderful "boutique" farms, or three star farm-to-table restraunts at 50-100$ a plate. Meanwhile the working people shop for food at walmarts.....
Ok, that was a rant....but surely there has to be a better way?
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