JOURNAL: Subscription Farming

In addition to entrepreneurial mini-farms, local farming can also be supported through subscriptions (aka Community Supported Agriculture). These subscriptions entitle the buyer to weekly deliveries/pick-ups of fresh produce. Subscription farming grew from 50 farms in 1990 to over 2000 today. Here's an example of a subscription farm directory (uses Google maps to plot locations) -- shares typically run $20-30 a week during the growing season with 400-500 shares per farm (Note: if you do have personal experience with this, please share it!).

What makes this interesting to our exploration of community resilience is:

• Subscription farming (like mini-farming on small plots) spreads the risks (if you know farming, then you know that it is a VERY risky business) among participants and smoothes cash flows.
  
• It's a model that communities can implement on arable public land, where the rent for the land is provided as a share of the crop to the community.
  
• If you combine both models (subscription and mini-farms), you can develop hybrid models where individuals rent/manage small plots on a larger parcel and purchase services (from weed/pest control to tilling) from the land's manager.
  

Comments

[Gunnar Peterson]

You can spread your risk or pay someone else to spread it for you:

"Crop insurance is purchased by agricultural producers, including farmers, ranchers, and others to protect themselves against either the loss of their crops due to natural disasters, such as hail, drought, and floods, or the loss of revenue due to declines in the prices of agricultural commodities. The two general categories of crop insurance are called crop-yield insurance and crop-revenue insurance.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_insurance

[Cole Tucker]

I have joined CSA farms over the past two years and have nothing but love for them. The first year I split a whole share between 5 people and it came down to $17 a person per month and we consistently had enough extra to freeze or can. This year I have split a half share between two people and it has gone up to $35 a month, but over a much longer growing season.

We get local, organic produce and flowers from people we can actually meet. Here in Western Massachusetts, several single-crop farms have been wiped out due to extreme weather conditions; our farm share has enough diversity that we have barely noticed the difference. The farm also aids community building, having monthly potlucks for members to socialize.

I would like to note that crop insurance works when you have a functioning economic system to support it; local agriculture with crop diversity ensures continuity much more in line with the demands of a resilient community. Not only does it ensure food over the near future, it keeps a solid, productive skill-base in the area.

[PeakOilBoy]

I currently subscribe to a CSA in Oregon and will never look back.

Each week we get amazingly fresh organic fruits and vegetables, a newsletter with information about this week's harvest, recipe tips for what came in the delivery, and a real sense of giving my money directly to the farmer.

That is national security, baby!

www.brightneighbor.com

[drydiggins]

http://zoeyfarms.wordpress.com/

Our CSA 'connection' in El Dorado County, California. This is our first year with them, hopefully of many more to come.

I have forwarded several of your resilient community posts to our little sustainability group based in Placerville. It is a remarkable confluence of thought when hippie retreads and a hardnosed military analyst are coming to similar insights!

[Michael Tanji]

Neighbors in MSP were the local distro point for a CSA. Inevitably at least two people failed to make their weekly pick-up and we were the beneficiaries. Good food and lots of it. Of course impact of single-point-of-failure was noted even via this approach (severe spring floods that left portions of farm under water when they should have been planted); which meant the grocery was the backup to the "garden."

Now that I am in HOA-land and a garden largely a non-option, paying for a CSA portion is on the agenda because if NoVA is anything it is brittle.

[David Hayward]

Centralised services could make quite a difference to UK allotment holders. It's failry commonplace for plots in the UK to offer allotments for rental, but a great many people who think they're a good idea sign up, spend a day or two digging then neglect it for the rest of the year.

[jdrummey]

We're part of a CSA at Wildroot Farm in So. Maine - http://www.wildrootfarm.com/. Our farm shares suffered a bit from all the rain in July (squash rotting on the vine, for example), pointing out one of the advantages of non-local food production - isolation from local climate and weather. So we still supplement our share with trips to the grocery store.

[John Robb]

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. Keep it coming. BTW, has anyone seen something similar for poultry/eggs?

In regards to local failures: that is how it should be. Rely on local production for the bulk of consumption, and turn to the global system for 1) backup or 2) hard to manufacture/produce goods.

[geewhizpat]

I have belonged to a CSA in Sonoma County California for the last 6 months...it has been a life changing expereince for me...I attended one of my local CSA group "gatherings" to share food/thoughts and there was a speaker who presented this formula for "resiliency"...it is "Reverence + Ripples + Relationships = Resiliency...the Reverence is all about earth-centric sustainability...the ripples are positive unanticipated results that happen when you join something like a CSA...and the relationships are the community bonds that grow and get stronger...as an individual in the PO transition I need all this for my sustained resilience in the upheaval we are all trying to transition through...wordy I know...but joining the CSA was so significant in many ways for me that I encourage all of you to move in that direction...love this stuff!

[Kim McD]

Here's one on the eggs, John:

http://cookingupastory.com/stories/show/community-egg-coop/

Orange yolks and less soy fed are better, denser in nutrition.

[enigma_foundry]

My workplace just started a CSA service this year; I didn't subscribe but I will next year (I wanted to see what the produce was like first)

What is interesting is the direct connexion betwen urban/rural community that is formed. Also, it is based on a much more sustainable model--instead of travel thousands of miles, as most food does these days, it is just a little over one hundred that your food has to travel.

[Dave - Pest control products]

Interesting article...

[Pest Control Irvine]

I must admit I have never heard of "Subscription Farming" until now. I will do some looking into however,

Thanks for the post!