LSP in the News: Invest in this farm, eat the return

Invest in this farm, eat the return

Minneapolis Star Tribune

August 23, 2003

By PETER PASSI, The Associated Press

DULUTH, Minn. - Rob Stenseng of Duluth doesn't want his children to grow up thinking food is something that comes shrink-wrapped from the supermarket. He wants them to appreciate that people working the land are the true providers.
That's just one of the reasons why he and his wife Deborah invest in Food Farm, the Wrenshall business that introduced the concept of community-supported agriculture to the Northland.

Operations like the Food Farm are often called CSAs. They offer consumers a chance to buy shares in a farm, and in return, these investors receive a cut of the weekly harvest.

When John and Jane Fisher-Merritt launched their organic CSA a decade ago, few Northland residents had ever heard of such a thing.

Food Farm's startup puts it among the first CSAs in the state, according to Brian DeVore, communication coordinator for the Land Stewardship Project. He said the movement first gained a Minnesota foothold after about 450 people attended a conference on the CSA concept at Hamline University in fall 1992.

The CSA model, however, dates back much further. Credit for creating the first CSA belongs to a group of Japanese women who were concerned about the growing use of pesticides and the declining quality of the produce they found at the market. In 1965, they formed a direct cooperative relationship with local farmers.

Their idea first spread to Europe, then reached North America in the mid-1980s.
In recent years, CSAs have proliferated.

The Robyn Van En Center in Chambersburg, Pa., maintains a national registry of CSAs. Its list has grown from 266 operations in 1999 to more than 1,000 today, said its director, Martha Cornwell. And the registry continues to lengthen by five to six new operations per week, she said.

CSAs have mushroomed in the Northland, as well. In addition to Wrenshall's Food Farm, there are the Chequamegon CSA in the Bayfield, Wis., area, Round River Farm in Finland, Common Place Farm in Barnum, and Spica, a small CSA southeast of Bovey.

Food Farm, the granddaddy of the lot, remains the largest. Offering 110 shares, the 7-acre farm provides vegetables to about 200 families during the summer.

Many families split a share. Stenseng said he has found a half-share more than adequate to meet the needs of a family of four.

Janaki Fisher-Merritt, who works alongside his father full-time at Food Farm, said each shareholder this week received 2 1/2 pounds of snap peas, 1 1/2 pounds of tomatoes, a head of romaine lettuce, a bundle of green onions, four zucchini, one cucumber, two peppers, a cauliflower and two heads of broccoli.

A summer share at Food Farm costs $440 and entitles the holder to a weekly package of vegetables from June through October.

Stenseng figures the organic vegetables cost slightly more than they would at a grocery store, but he says they're worth a little extra.

"The quality of the produce is better," he said. "And we like knowing who's growing our food and what they're doing."

In contrast, Stenseng said, "When you buy produce at the grocery store, most of the time you've got no idea where it comes from. It could have been grown in Bolivia or Mexico, and you don't know what kinds of pesticides they used."

This year marks Loren Nelson's fifth as a Food Farm shareholder and his second as a field volunteer.

"It's my way of giving something back," said the Mahtowa resident. "I think people like the Fisher-Merritts are doing about the most important work on the planet. They're growing food in a sustainable way on the local level."

Janaki Fisher-Merritt said volunteers play a key role in making Food Farm work.
In addition to offering summer vegetable shares, the Fisher-Merritts have built a climate-controlled storage facility that allows Food Farm to extend operation beyond the end of the growing season. It offers a winter share for $215 that provides monthly produce deliveries from November through March. Food Farm has also diversified into poultry and egg production.

Janaki Fisher-Merritt said his family is exploring the possibility of operating a dairy, as well.

Cornwell said the CSA model has shown itself to be extremely flexible. She said a CSA in New York recently began operating a restaurant on the side.

CSAs in the Northland come in all shapes and sizes. On the small side of the spectrum, Paula Williams is in the second year of operating a flower CSA near Barnum. She sold all 10 of the shares she offered this year. For each $150 share her customers buy, they receive a bouquet of flowers cut fresh weekly. For 10 weeks beginning in July and ending in September, Williams puts together floral arrangements featuring blooms in her half-acre flower garden that have reached their prime.

Williams said she had more would-be customers than shares to offer this year, but plans to enlarge her flower beds in 2004 and perhaps offer 15 to 20 shares.
The situation is similar at Food Farm, the Chequamegon CSA, Spica and Round River Farm. All have routinely had to turn away customers, sometimes setting up waiting lists for shares.

On occasion, one CSA that has run out of shares refers would-be customers to another.

Jenny Mahan, who serves as coordinator for the Chequamegon CSA, said her organization has been the beneficiary of Food Farm referrals in the past. The Chequamegon CSA has a couple of spaces available because of employment changes and people moving, but Mahan said that's unusual.

The Chequamegon CSA has 45 shareholders. Owners of a full $500 share receive a little less than a bushel of fruits and vegetables weekly, and owners of $250 half-shares receive half as much.

Although the Chequamegon CSA functions as a single unit, it's actually composed of six farms scattered across the Bayfield Peninsula.

Mahan said the structure allows producers to focus on what they do best and also provides the CSA with an extra level of stability.

"Our growers are in different microclimates, so if one has a crop failure, there's usually someone else to back them up," she explained.

Jan O'Donnell, coordinator of the Northeast Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association, views such collaborative efforts as a promising development.
"I'm convinced the only way small farmers will survive is if they can find different ways to cooperate with one another."

David Abazs, who operates Round River Farm with his wife Lise in Finland, said people are finally beginning to realize that CSAs can work even in rural areas.
"I've had people tell me, `If you can make it work there on the North Shore, you can make it work about anywhere,' " Abazs said. He happens to agree: it can.

Information from: Duluth News Tribune