Buying Straight From the Farm: A Growing Trend in MA

February 28, 2011
(Listen)MIDDLEBORO & BARRE, Mass. - The popularity of eating locally grown food continues to rise in New England agriculture. The number of Massachusetts and regional farmers turning toward community-supported agriculture, or CSA, has tripled in the last decade. Under the CSA model, people buy shares in a farming operation on an annual basis. In return, the farmer provides a regular supply of fresh, natural or organic produce throughout the growing season.

James Reynolds owns The Dahlia Farm, Middleboro. He says farming is hard work, but while the rewards may not necessarily be financial, the connection to community members is priceless.

"There's definitely more of a community aspect or community feel to it. We're meeting the people who are actually consuming our product, and we're getting involved with their families, their children."

Julie Rawson owns Many Hands Organic Farm and also is the executive director of The Northeast Organic Farmers Association in Massachusetts. She has run her CSA in Barre for the last 19 years. She says farmers have a huge number of expenses going into the growing season, and this business model relieves a lot of that burden.

"When people who are buying a share put up their money up front, that helps us not have to go into debt. It's a great way for the consumer and the farmer to work symbiotically: Farmers get their money up front and then consumers get their food throughout the season. You know it's of great value to both sides."

Reynolds says a lot of misconceptions still exist about buying directly from the farm - especially regarding price.

"You can actually get farm-fresh, no-pesticide, no-chemical food at a relatively fair economic price. In other words, the super-premium price you might expect to pay isn't necessarily there with your local farms."

Reynolds advises customers to shop around before buying in to a CSA. Some farms also offer half-shares, he notes.

CSAs are not limited to produce; farmers may offer shares for eggs, cheese and other products in their weekly distribution boxes or baskets. The popularity of year-round CSAs is gaining traction, too, with some farmers growing crops in greenhouses throughout the year.


Monique Coppola, Public News Service - MA


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Cow Power

Initiated in large part by our energy company in Vermont - CVPS - Cow Power is taking its place at the forefront on new alternative energies.

Featured in YouTube videos the manure/methane to electricity/propane conversion is now and early-stage reality, with an economic reality.

Although presently the economy of scale is for an 800-head dairy or larger, that efficiency should improve as the science continues to develop.

Subsidies aside, Cow Power is a new, rural emerging energy technology...

Yeehah!

CSA week 6

CSA Week #6 Full-share includes:
Green Beans
Mixed Salad Greens (Endive, red kale, red lettuce, shugiku)
Summer Squash (Zephyr)
Carrot
Cucumbers.
White Radish (Ping-pong) Salad topping, or slice & bake with olive oil, salt, cayenne pepper & garlic powder.
HERB: Sage
CUT FLOWER: White Phlox







Be sure to see our website for RECIPES.
POST A COMMENT in our online FORUM.

Equal Exchange

An Organic Solution
By Ashley Symons, Writer/Editor

It's a Friday morning at Equal Exchange and one day short of the official start of Spring. A truck backs into one of our loading docks. But it's not here to take away boxes of Equal Exchange products. It’s here to pick up chaff.

"Chaff is a skin that comes off the coffee as it roasts," said Lead Coffee Roaster Thomas Lussier. "As the coffee dries out and expands during roasting, it sheds this skin." Each week, we produce about 30-40 tall garbage bags - about 430 pounds of chaff. That could be a lot of waste, albeit organic, but fortunately chaff has another use – in the garden. Coffee bean chaff adds helpful nutrients to a compost mixture, and is especially good for the growth of vegetables.

In the fall of 2008, Rodney North, Equal Exchange's "Answer Man," started looking for ways to distribute chaff to local farmers. Eva Sommaripa, a certified organic grower of fresh culinary herbs, cut flower bouquets, edible flowers and specialty greens, took interest. Her business, Eva's Garden, is based in South Dartmouth, Mass. They make deliveries to markets and restaurants in the Boston area and could easily pick up chaff on the trip back to South Dartmouth. "As an organic farmer she was more interested than most in making her own compost and getting an organic compost ingredient was a plus," North said.

James Reynolds of The Dahlia Farm in Middleboro, Mass., has also utilized chaff from Equal Exchange for the last year. The farm is an organic CSA producer of vegetables and cutflowers. "We're regularly experimenting with alternative means of production," said Reynolds. "Initially I used the chaff as a general additive to the farm's clay-loam soil, but soon began to specifically target mulch and bedding, mixing the chaff with soil to make a lighter backfill for both leeks and potatoes – both of which require a series of stem-covering during the growing season. The chaff is a good substitute for foul bedding as it absorbs excess moisture and ammonia, which is later turned into compost."

Don’t have access to chaff? Instead of throwing out your coffee grounds after brewing, put them in your garden! Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen, and can be sprinkled around plants, added to compost piles, or mixed into soil for houseplants or vegetable beds.

Our very own Banana Coordinator, Nicole Vitello, is also an organic farmer, and has used coffee grounds in her compost pile for years. "As an organic farmer, compost is a key ingredient in soil fertility but also in improving soil tilth," Vitello said. "Tilth is the structure of the soil and relates directly to its ability to aerate plant roots and both hold and shed moisture. In New England, farmers often have to contend with high clay concentrations in the soil which can make it heavy and difficult for plant roots to penetrate and access available nutrients."

Just like with coffee roasting, gardening is a mix of art and science!