The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership. This is the second of seven Field Notes articles focusing on sustainable living, community agriculture and food security. These “Summer of Sustainability” columns feature practical advice on growing, harvesting and preserving your own foods, as well as more philosophical essays on life and the way we live in the modern world.
John Grisham’s 2001 novel, “A Painted House,” deviates from his typical courtroom thriller plot to tell a more intimate story based on his rural Arkansas upbringing. Set in the early 1950s, the book describes the hardscrabble life of a poor cotton-farming family. While the story does, perhaps, romanticize certain aspects of rural life in the mid-century South, it looks unflinchingly at the inherent difficulties of the agricultural economy, where a few rainy days at the wrong time can wipe out months of hard labor. The book could, in fact, be titled “Why We Moved North.”
In the final pages, the family decides to move to Detroit, where the father has leveraged a family connection to get a job at the Buick factory. Having lived through the preceding 380 pages of trials and disappointment with the family, heading North seems like a logical move. The promise of guaranteed pay for a day’s work is too good to pass up.
The Grisham family saga is hardly unique. Once the dominant occupation in this country, agriculture is now barely a blip on the employment radar. The vast majority of us have become consumers, not producers, of the food we eat, and most of us either don’t know or don’t care where that food comes from or the compromises made to get it from there to here.
Conversely, I believe that we have a strong innate desire to grow things. We may have evolved from hunter-gatherers, but agriculture – the ability to produce food in a controlled way to meet our dietary needs – made us the society we are today. Unfortunately, many of us have become removed from the soil. Last week, I wrote about container gardening as a way to reconnect to our agrarian roots, and this week I want to talk about community agriculture.
Community agriculture takes many forms, from Community Supported Agriculture organizations, or CSAs, to “rent-a-plot” community gardens to cooperative gardening ventures. Whatever the format, community agriculture allows individuals and families to participate in growing their own food without the risk of starvation or the possibility of financial ruin.
CSAs are farms that sell “shares” of their output to the public at a fixed up-front price. You effectively invest in a farm and take your “profit” in the produce you receive. Obviously, the longer a farm has been in existence and the better its track record over that time, the more sound that investment is. CSA shares are typically priced in the hundreds of dollars, so it is a relatively low-cost way to get into community agriculture with no long-term commitment. In most cases, the shareholder receives a basket of produce on a weekly or semi-weekly basis that represents their share of the farm’s output. Shareholders may also receive additional benefits, like personal farm tours, harvest parties or work-on-the-farm days. If the farm has a bumper crop, a shareholder could get far more value than the cost of their share. Or, in a bad year, far less. There is some risk involved, but most CSAs provide good value and the opportunity to get farm-fresh fruits and vegetables.
For those interested in getting their hands dirty, community gardens are a good option. Although there are various business models, these gardens generally fall into one of two categories, rent-a-plot or co-op. In a rent-a-plot setup, an individual or family rents a defined space in the garden for the growing season and can effectively plant and grow whatever they want in that space. Sometimes the space is a raised bed or an area demarcated by a fence or border, and sometimes it is just a tilled area roped off or marked with some temporary boundary. Prices generally start at $10 or $20 per season and vary based on the space offered. In most cases, the fee includes water and occasionally compost or other organic amendments. The garden may restrict the types of fertilizers and pesticides used. All the produce grown belongs to the renter.
The co-op style community garden is generally associated with a church or other non-profit organization. Co-ops have an organized growing plan and volunteers perform annual and daily tasks under the direction of a team leader or garden manager. The produce grown is typically donated to a food pantry or other charitable group for distribution to the food insecure of the community, although some co-ops allow volunteers to take a small “gardeners share” for their own use. Co-op community gardens are a great way to support community agriculture and as a first step toward a garden of your own. The team leader or garden manager often has formal training or has been gardening for a number of years, and working with them for a season or two will prove an invaluable learning experience above and beyond the satisfaction of doing something good for the community.