Hi Everyone,
In this update:
1. Summer Session Begins June 15th!
Our first CSA pick-up starts the week of June 15th. It's been a slow start to the 2010 season (see #7 below), but we will have something for the first week, and we are ready to start as scheduled.
We appreciate the many of you who have signed up - a lot of you have been signed up since last October! That's really what CSA is all about: members of the community committing themselves to making a difference by buying locally what is available during the local growing season. Of course we all want a "deal," but honestly, we've had too many "deals" in the past. Those deals usually come with a delayed price-tag - maybe the exploitation of a resource such as oil that provides cheap gasoline for a time, maybe cheap vegetables that are grown at the expense of our environment and to the detriment of our own health, etc.
We've been so busy with the Late Spring Session and with the impact of our "late" spring that as I write this, I'm not even sure where our numbers are. But I expect to fill our quota this year. I know some CSAs will take as many people as they can get to sign up, but a real, local farm can only provide a certain number of shares. We still have shares available now, but I'm not sure that situation will last.
If you have questions about times of pick-ups on each day, please see the next section on the CSA handbook.
2. CSA Handbook
If you are new to our Summer Session this year reading our CSA Handbook is a must! You can find it on our web page, http://jubileefarm.org/handbooks/summer.html. It answers many questions you may have now, some you will likely have later, and some you haven't thought of. It also clarifies (we hope!) a lot of policy issues. So please take a few minutes and take a look. It is written in a Q and A format.
One thing, for example, that the CSA Handbook can help you with is suggestions about how to make your pick-up at the farm more easy - suggestions about what to bring that could be worth looking at.
If you're not new to our CSA, you should probably also look at the Handbook; there might be things you weren't aware of. If you have questions about scheduling or about any policy issues, please drop us a note at jubileefarm@hotmail.com.
3. Depot additions for Summer Session
We often have some variation from Session to Session in our depot locations. This summer we will be having depots in both Queen Anne and West Seattle. If you are getting a Summer Share delivery and you think you might like to switch your pick-up to either of these locations, please drop us a note (jubileefarm@hotmail.com).
4. This year's Farm School
We get a lot of questions this time of year about Farm School. All those questions, of course, are answered . . . where? Yes, in the Handbook on the web page! But in a word, it doesn't start until the first week in July (this year July 6th). Let's hope by then the sun will be shinning!
5. What is distinctive about our farm?
We get asked this question fairly often - often enough that I thought as we start this new Summer Session it might be worth talking about. I don't often say these kinds of things, and I feel a little awkward saying them, but once in a while, maybe as a kind of initiation of a new season, perhaps these things need to be said.
When we started our CSA fifteen years ago, there was only one other CSA in King County. In fact, there were probably no more than the two of us in the entire state. The other, of course, was our good friend Claire Thomas at the Root Connection. Along with Claire we've watched many dozens of CSAs start over the years, and we're thrilled to see this happen.
But a change has occurred lately, and there is some lack of clarity now about what a CSA actually is. Two of my neighbors, for example, who used to call themselves "CSAs" still farm, and still deliver produce, but recently decided to no longer call themselves CSAs. Why?
Well, there is a kind of tacit agreement among farmers about what constitutes a CSA. One of the essential elements in a CSA is that during the local growing season the food provided in the boxes is grown on the farm. Not just some of it, but all of it. That's a pretty high standard. So high, that many farmers who choose not to keep this standard have chosen of their own accord - taking the lexical "high ground" one might say - to not call themselves CSAs any longer. There is a lot of confusion about who is a CSA, as evidenced by a recent "five best CSAs in Seattle" listing in which four of the five "best" were not CSAs under this accepted understanding of what a CSA is. In fact, the number one "CSA" on this list isn't even a farm and doesn't grow anything! I suppose that people can call themselves anything they want, but it does make it confusing for consumers who want to support a local, organic farm rather than a wholesale food brokerage warehouse in Seattle!
Another accepted characteristic of a CSA is that the membership of a "true" CSA takes a risk in being a member. If crops fail, members of a CSA will share in the loss. On farms that offer home delivery services rather than CSAs, failed crops, or just crops not planted because they are too much work, can be purchased wholesale and sold retail. This practice certainly entails less work and more gain, and customers of delivery services have a kind of guarantee that CSA members do not enjoy; they are signing on for a sure thing. Maybe this is where the "smart money" goes, as there is little risk.
But just as there is little risk, there is also, I think, less reward. One of the huge benefits of joining a real CSA is that you join a community of committed people who together take a risk for the value of supporting local agriculture. There is a chance things won't turn out, that some weeks members will pay more for their box than it could be purchased from other sources. But there's also a chance - and this chance increases as farmers become better farmers - that the experience of the farmers will pay off and members will get more than they paid for each box (something that doesn't happen with delivery services). Then the members and the farmers win in two ways. First, they have taken an action based on values rather than a "sure return," and, when it works out (like last year) their risk is rewarded with great bounty. In either event, the sense of being a part of the growing revolution that challenges the same old "food business as usual" is something that gives members of CSAs a great deal of satisfaction and empowerment. Being a part of the local food movement brings health, fulfillment and a sense of participation in the process of bringing safe food to your table.
I readily admit that if convenience, price and guaranteed supply are the ultimate values one holds in purchasing vegetables, the home delivery services might on occasion win over our CSA. But for people who recognize that we need a fundamental change in the way agriculture occurs in our country, the CSA model that we practice is, I believe (along with most or all of you, I'm sure - I am preaching to the choir!), an investment in the kind of future you want to have for yourselves and for the next generation. Maybe other options would sometimes yield more short-term return on investment. But with a true CSA, you are investing in more than a single week or even a single year's return. You are investing in a future that includes local, organic, family farming, safe food and a healthier environment. In the long term, that's an investment that will pay huge dividends.
Beyond the distinctives of actually being a CSA (rather than just calling ourselves one), our farm is not simply "organic," but is "Biodynamic." That means that beyond the bare requirements for legal certification - which, by the way, aren't much - we have committed ourselves to becoming truly sustainable. And you who support us are likewise, vicariously in this regard, committing yourselves to long-term sustainability as well. It's not easy. As I've often said, you can get "certified" organic in a minute - by just writing a check. The biodynamic practice, which is nothing short of the sustainability of farming traditions that have stood the test of time, takes a long time to establish.
The essential characteristic of providing one's own fertility from the farm, when engaged from the first-generation, takes a full generation to establish. But the fact that the desire to be sustainable can't be instantly gratified makes it even more valuable. Wendy and I have worked for years already, and we are committed to working for the rest of our lives to moving this farm toward being truly sustainable. We feel that is an investment that is worthwhile for our lives, and we are pleased that so many of you demonstrated by your commitment to this farm that you stand with us in our decision to pay the price of sustainability.
We couldn't do this alone. We couldn't do this with a membership whose primary concern is their own convenience or even their own short-term "return on the investment." Wendy and I are investing in the long term, trying to create a truly sustainable farm, and we are thankful that so many from the community have come along and joined us with that as our primary common goal.
6. Herd Update: Beef availability and distribution
It's been a very interesting spring with the herd. As most of you know, having had a February that gave hope of an early spring, we let the cows out early - in February. After all, there seemed to be a lot of grass, the sun was shining, and, we already had three times as much manure as we had the year before! So, out they went.
Well, spring wasn't kind to grass grazers. But we made it work with a lot of cattle moving. Wendy and I shared equally the burden of moving the cows as often as they needed to be moved. And the results have been heartening. The herd is healthy, strong and growing. And, as we approach summer solstice, we near the time of harvest.
The list of interested folks in our beef is long. It probably exceeds the supply, and will probably get even longer after this update. The same kinds of things I said above apply here too: the purchase of beef is both an investment in well-cared-for, grass-fed beef and an investment in the kind of future we want to be a part of. Here, too, we are learning about how to balance the fertility requirements of the farm, the number of cows we need to provide that fertility, and the balance we need to achieve between crops for our members and the maintenance of our farm's fertility. Additionally, we have to decide how to fairly decide who gets the available beef shares!
It seems to us that we should give first option to our members: the people who have made this farm possible. Trying to be fair, we've decided to do the following. We have set the maximum amount we will sell to any individual to be 1/2 of a cow. When the time comes (early in July) we will e-mail the list we have now (plus any who want to get on the list) and take the names of all the people who respond. If there are more people than quarters of beef, we will first separate members from non-members. If there are still more people than quarters of beef, we will separate on the basis of previous beef purchases. If there are still more people interested than there are quarters of beef, we will drop the names into a hat and decide by lot who gets the beef. I don't know of any other more fair way to do it, although if anyone has a suggestion we are open to it.
7. This Spring
I need to be careful that this doesn't turn into a whining session. Fortunately, I don't need to tell many of you how wet and cool it's been; you all know that. But I do want to point out one thing. We keep a water-trough behind the barn that we empty occasionally. We also measure from time-to-time just to see how bad it really has been. The amazing thing this year is that as we compare the rainfall we have gotten to the Seattle rain gauges, we are tempted to say that people who live in town got off easy - even though they too have been whining! This isn't always the case, but this year it certainly has been. Many days when there has been little or no measurable rainfall in town we have had an inch or more! Since the four days without rain we had in mid-May (they were all together) it has rained over seven inches here. That's a lot of water.
What does this mean for the farm? Management this year has been a challenge. We've had to be ready everyday for any breaks in the weather to get into the fields, but also prepared to keep busy during the deluges. We've spent a lot of time in the greenhouses, listening to the rain pour down while we prune and weed tomatoes. Fortunately we got our early crops in during the brief windows we had - Asian greens, greenhouse tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, strawberries, grains, and even our first rotations of beans and edamame.
Interestingly, if the weather were to turn now as seems it might, we're not in that bad of shape. Our propagation house is bulging to the seams, but if we got some warmer, dryer weather now we wouldn't be but a week or two behind for our plantings of outside peppers, eggplants, tomatilloes, pumpkins, watermelon and cantaloupe. The only two crops that we are seriously behind on and that will be very late are flowers and corn.
I think we've done pretty well for a spring that is certainly (and thankfully!) unprecedented in anyone's memory.
8. Erick and Wendy leaving the farm? (Yes, but only for a few days)
It's shocking, but true: Wendy and I are leaving the farm for four days. As you might guess, it's something pretty important - the wedding of my youngest son, David. The wedding is in Montana. By the time you all get this note we will very likely be there, driving a rented van with the two of us, Wendy's daughter Shawna, my oldest son Daniel and his fiancé Amy, and my daughter Laura and her boyfriend Ian.
We are, of course, looking forward to the trip and to the wedding. It's also hard to leave the farm. We will be back late Saturday night, which should give us time to get ready for our first week of CSA!
9. President Clinton tells all
Concerns about the solvency of Greece and other European countries have had a serious impact on Wall Street. But another issue adding to the worries of Corporate America has been a challenge voiced and even debated in Congress recently about a core principle of US economic policy: the belief that the surest path to achieve the greatest good for everyone is to allow citizens and corporations the unfettered freedom to pursue their own best interests.
It was Ronald Reagan who made a political platform of this principle, which in his era came to be dubbed the "trickle-down theory of economics." This theory has been either explicitly or implicitly embraced by every US president since Reagan. The logic of this argument eventually gave rise in the Bill Clinton era to free-trade treaties, which were heralded as the crowning glory of free enterprise capitalism.
One doesn't need to be against free-enterprise to recognize that in the last few months the jury on the large scale enterprises of both unrestrained business freedom and free-trade treaties has begun to be heard - and the verdict may not be what we expected.
The earthquake in Haiti provided an unlikely epiphany for former President Bill Clinton. It is widely held that without Mr. Clinton's strong support of NAFTA, the free trade legislation would have failed. It is interesting that on the occasion of his signing the NAFTA legislation, Clinton recognized and noted that something unforeseen could change his position. It seems that serving as Special Envoy to Haiti, seventeen years later, was such an unforeseen event. In Haiti, Clinton saw first-hand the impact of the free-trade he urged on NAFTA signatories and also on the country of Haiti when he was in office.
A statement made on March 10th of this year made it clear that Mr. Clinton has recognized the unintended (by him, though not unforeseen by others) consequences of free trade in Haiti. On that day, reporting on his experience in Haiti, Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that his insistence on free-trade
"may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake... I had to live every day with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did - nobody else."
In hindsight we see that the promise of new jobs here in the US meant the devastation of the local Haitian economy and the loss of the country's ability to feed and care for itself. The same has been seen in Mexico where tens of thousands of small farmers have protested the final phase-out of tariffs on imported US agricultural products. Agricultural economies of third-world countries just cannot survive the duty-free importing of subsidized US agricultural products. As a repentant Mr. Clinton lamented, it may be good (in the short term) for a few US farmers (typically corporate mega-agribusiness ventures); in the long run it brings bankruptcy, poverty and loss of family farms in third-world countries like Haiti and Mexico. It's only when disaster strikes that we are reminded that our agricultural trade policies have in many cases destroyed the ability of third-world counties to feed themselves.
These agricultural trade policies can change, and should change. There is no reason that US industrial-farmers should receive subsidies for crops that they otherwise would not grow and for crops that, as Mr. Clinton now knows, can have devastating impacts on the economies of third-world nations. Unfortunately, the corporate agricultural lobby is very powerful. Resistance to change is strong, and lobbyists in DC are well-entrenched. I sometimes am driven to despair thinking about the corruption of our own policies and the devastation these policies bring to small farmers here and throughout the world. And it's hard to believe that simply allowing the wealthy to pursue greater wealth, using means that are technically legal, will really bring the greater good for everyone.
It really is time for a revolution and it could, should, and I believe will be focused on food. Our earth does not have unlimited resources. The ones we have are being depleted and squandered for the short-term gratification of wealthy individuals and nations. Change is inevitable. Will we wait for the collapse when we will be compelled to change? Or will we begin to make the change now?
Our best to you all,
Erick and Wendy