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Drive through Lake County, and you'll see row on row, mile on mile of weedless corn and beans, representing a miracle of modern science and technology. Those sprawling monoculture fields also represent darned boring if not outright unhealthy land and an ever emptier countryside.
Nature never grows just one thing in one place, but farmers around here will tell you that's just the way it is; there's no other way to compete and make a living.
The folks at Erewhon Farm in Illinois think otherwise. Susan Saulny of the NY Times tells us about this successful community-supported agriculture (CSA) operation. Instead of a big thousand-acre spread growing just one crop, Erewhon Farm is just four acres growing a variety of fruits and vegetables—you know, food you can actually eat when you pick it, unlike most of the corn in our fields—as well as some nice flower patches. Erewhon Farm has drawn about 150 shareholders who pay between $300 and $900 a pop for a cut of the edible harvest, plus $120 to $220 for a share of fresh-cut flowers. Shareholders skip the middleman; sometimes they pick their own food and even volunteer to come weed and tend the fields.
Four acres, conservative estimate of $45,000 in revenue, no middleman, plus some free labor. Sounds like a heck of a business model to me.
I've mentioned this before, but consider also how much richer the county would be if we could take just one section, 640 acres, from one of our massive ag-industrial complex farms (the Stip brothers here in Lake County would never miss one section, would they?) and turn it into several small-scale CSA outfits and CRP land. Take half of that section, 320 acres, divide it into 80 four-acre farms... if we had half the success of Erewhon Farm, we'd have 80 farms producing fresh food for the entire population of Madison. Plus, we'd have 80 more families making a decent living in farming, buying goods and services in town, supporting the schools....
So how about this plan for meeting the LAIC's Forward Madison goals: the LAIC subsidizes the purchase of land for farmers who want to start CSAs in Lake County. The $2.3 million in the Forward Madison kitty could kick in $1500 per acre for over 1500 acres... 380-some small farms. If each of those farms brings a family, our population goes up by at least 800, exactly the goal the LAIC set a couple years ago. We get a healthier economy, healthier community, and healthier food.
Read more: Susan Saulny, "Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms," New York Times, 2008.0o7.10.
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In Politics: Nationally: The Election is over and the wrong side won. I
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3 days ago
Actually, Cory, there is something like that happening here, only it's probably a much smaller scale. Last year on the garden walk Jerry Tunheim was featured. His garden is amazingly huge. It goes on forever and he has people pay x amount per year and they get fresh veggies throughout the summer as things are ready. Proceeds go to scholarships at the university, if I remember right.
ReplyDeleteCory, just because "nature" doesn't grow only one thing in one spot does not automatically make it bad. "Nature" also doesn't have tractors or sprayers to supply pesticides and fertilizer. "Nature" is simply an optimizer. In the abscence of people to tend a field, biodiversity thrives because there is nothing forcing the system to one local maximum or another.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, if the concept of local farms was sound, wouldn't the farmers markets be sufficient to prove this theory? Why should we invest large sums of money into this when any local farmer could grow some veggies, take them to market, and sell them for a profit? If it is sooooo practical and profitable, why isn't this arising naturally?
We live in a globalized, specialized economy that is suprisingly difficult to predict. While it may make sense to grow tomatoes here to save on transport costs, the globalized economy may find a way to grow them in Florida for 1/10th the cost and transport them here for 2/5ths. The total being tomatoes from florida that cost 50% of locally grown ones.
Aren't you a conservative? Where is this socialist, top down thinking coming from?
Cory a conservative?? Thanks for my laugh for the day!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Corey. Just an fyi on another Madison-area CSA already in operation. Paul Warner and his wife operate a small vegetable and fruit farm near Madison. They have a full-time booth at the Downtown Farmers Market in Sioux Falls and both a summer and fall c.s.a. (and Paul is a homegrown Montrose boy, after all).
ReplyDeleteWe thought hard about buying into the Warners' csa (Mrs. Warner even delivered their veggie lists and sign up forms to our door in person!), but decided the pick-up on Saturdays in Sioux Falls wouldn't work for us (we're 30 miles away), and we grow some tomatoes and beans and such in our back yard garden. We found ourselves really wanting to support the Warners, but the best we can do now is buy veggies from them each time we visit the market.
To Tony:
In regard to your thoughts about mono-culture, check out the terrific work of the folks at The Land Institute in Salina, KS. Or see permaculture.org. Biodiveristy thrives too.
And, it's always curious to me when we, as humans, separate ourselves from nature. It seems ridiculous to me to think of ourselves as some superior species that is outside of nature. We are nature--a very tiny and new piece of this beautifully and amazingly biodiverse creation that's still in progress.
to life's journey,
jb