Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms

[Dover]

CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. — In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.

On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.

“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.

Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon — in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.

The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend...cont'd


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/us/10farms.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=us&pagewanted=all

[Dover]

1. Helpful website - Local Harvest (find a farmer near you)

http://www.localharvest.org/




I'm crossposting this OP and info from its thread contributors in the Energy/Env. forum.

[knitter4democracy]

5. I love that website!

I've found great stuff from there!

[Dover]

2. Websites: National Sustainable Agriculture and Fulton Center for Sustainable Living

Nat'l Sustainable Ag:
http://attra.ncat.org/

FCSL
http://www.wilson.edu/Wilson/asp/content.asp?id=220

[LWolf]

3. I remember reading about a farm doing this

back in the 80s, and being intrigued. I've been glad to see this kind of farming gaining ground.

The closest CSA farm in my area is a 45 mile round trip. You get a weekly bag of groceries June through September for your share.

I can't afford the weekly drive; I keep hoping something else will open up more locally. Meanwhile, there is still the farmer's market in the summer.

[Dover]

4. Here's a family's blog about their participation in community supported agriculture program >

Hope you're able to find one near you LWolf. I'm looking into that myself.


http://tinyurl.com/69moe7

[conscious evolution]

6. The Real Dirt on Farmer John

That is the name of a autobiographical documentary on a hippy farmer that I watched Last night. Very good movie and I highly recommend it.

Anyways, the last part of the movie is his story about how he got involved in CSA.A very informative story on CSA's and how they work.

[Dover]

7. Is this a film you rented, or was it on t.v. ? A little more info would help, thanks..n/t