"Community Supported Agriculture Farms" have for years emphasized nutrition, quality, locality and connection. The CSA movement began in response to desires for fresher, cleaner foods, more local farms and farmers, with the hope of building greater community and personal security. With the onset of an increasingly centralized/corporatized/chemicalized food supply, CSA's have employed cooperative strategies in addressing work force and labor conditions, long term land security, community building and education. Through food share purchases or work activity, Community Farms enable members to become involved in the seasonal production of their local food supply, insuring and inspecting first hand, the food they are eating.
Worldwide, numerous urban and rural models exist which employ handicapped, homeless, and unemployed people in the production of their own food. Many of these people find renewed self worth and self reliance through small scale food production. As land is put to productive use, families are empowered and communities revitalized. CSA farms offer a safer and more secure, locally based food supply, raised by neighbors you know and can talk to.
For us, Community Agriculture has included raising a family, building a home, a farm, caring for orchards, and finding a core of valuable working members and friends, all who share the laughter and tears. The work is honorable and rewarding, promoting values of hard work, healthy foods, and respect for the earth. For us, this has also meant carrying on farming and spiritual traditions of family, working the land, and building community in a context of simplicity and peace.
Most of our planting, cultivation, pest control, and harvest, are done without large equipment. Crops are raised without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Soil fertility is maintained through composts, properly handled manure, rotations, and cover crops. Floating row covers, flowering plants, and beneficial insects help to control pests. Hand and tractor cultivation reduce weed pressure. Harvesting is done by hand. Crops are cleaned, prepared, packed, and refrigerated so as to preserve freshness and flavor. Produce is on your table for use within 8 – 30 hours.
Our farming practices are perhaps best described as bio-dynamic, because of the emphasis on whole farm approaches, integration of animals, and preparations as homeopathic remedies to soil health. CSA farms integrate these concepts into broader community relationships.
Listed below you’ll find our main points of emphasis:
We will continue to emphasize the added benefits which CSA farms bring to the agricultural landscape and the values that we believe are "beyond organic". We welcome your thoughts and suggestions!