Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["David Inglis" <mhcsa@verizon.net>]

Paul,
>CSA of course reaches primarily
> those who can afford to pay in advance, and from reports of other CSAs it
> appears some subscribers don't use all they get and some don't even pick
up
> on schedule after paying in advance. 
That can be the case but is often not. Prepayment is an often mentioned but
not a required feature of CSA's.[ In my analysis the ONLY required features
of CSA are some form of farm membership or affiliation, that the arrangement
between the producer and final consumer is direct, transparent and be by a
mutual, and preferably written, agreement, ie contractual]. All other
features are flexible and can be worked out by agreement between consumer
and producer, this includes payments. Most offer flexible payment plans. A
farmers market, while working for many of  both the consumers and producers
that use them, does not meet any of these criterion. That does not mean they
are inferior in any way, but they are just not equivalent.
A CSA's product is usually far cheaper than store bought organic and is
therefore a good option for the poor. The reasons for this are complex but a
short version would be that CSA's can shift wholesale quantities of produce
at prices [in the aggregate] that are higher than wholesale[ good for the
producer] but less than retail [good for the consumer]. Also many economies
of production and distribution can come into play such as: eliminating
bagging, weighing, banding etc The benefits of these economies are usually
shared in the community of the producer and consumer. If you want to level a
criticism on behalf of the poor you would be better to point out that the
least expensive option, on farm distribution, is only available to those
with access to a vehicle.

>And if they had to buy a "mystery box" of produce, most simply
> would not. No grocery store could stay in business operating that way. 

 Everything about the product in a grocery store, other than its price, is a
mystery. Who grew it? Where was it grown? How did it get here? How was it
grown? When was it grown? What will it taste like? What variety is it? How
much of the price goes to the farmer? Did illegal immigrants pick it? Did
the ingredients of this salad mix
even hamburger come from the same place? Who combined them and on what
basis? Etc,etc. 
So
> my own bias about CSAs comes down to not wanting to ask customers to pay
in
> advance for things they may never want, or to share the risks of weather,
> crop problems, or my own mistakes. 
So if you were setting up a CSA then you would not  agree to do things that
way. Fine. In the real world I think what you would find is that when you
sit down with the people you are growing the food for [highly recommended]
it is they that insist on sharing that 'risk', not the producers, which is a
novel and nourishing experience. Anyway as the movement has matured and
there are multiple CSA's in an area that are co operating  the risk drops to
very little.
The only option when the CSA movement started out was the 'mystery box'
system and lots of CSA's still use that system and I agree with you about
some of their limitations. There are alternatives though. Since the Foodbank
Farm in MA. came up with 'mix and match volume limit' system  in the mid
'90's many CSA's, including ours, do not force 'sharers' to go home with
stuff they don't want and wont use. I can think of other ways of getting
around that to.

> We've never had an unhappy customer yet,
How would you know? They would just go elsewhere.  We have to deal with ours
and we have a 100% money back guarantee no matter how far into the season we
are but I have only reimbursed one member since 1993 and that was because he
was a pain in arse so I threw him out. 
 In my view, a farmers
> market is every bit as much "community supported agriculture" as a CSA.
> That's how Barb and I both feel about it. YMMV.
More power to you, but there is more than one way to the top of the
mountain.
Dave Inglis
Mahaiwe Harvest CS.A.
Z5
PS in '93 I took over what was one of the two original CSA's in the country
that been operating  since '87. '07 was my 15th season here.

Hey Liz!