Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: market-farming Working CSA Shares

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: market-farming Working CSA Shares
  • Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2001 14:22:51 -0500


Happy New Year to everybody!

After ten years in the "CSA biz" we've come up with a working shares system that works for us.

We donate a sizeable amount of our produce to local food pantries, and people are invited to come up and work in the gardens to support that effort. Most of these folks become members, but membership isn't required.

Because labor is a big part of what runs the farm, we accept ten hours of labor for a year's general membership ($60 cash).

We invite members to work alongside our farmers to learn organic gardening techniques at special no-fee workshops. This option is offered only to members.

Because the farm doesn't run on labor alone, a member's first $100 produce share has to be paid with money. We can spread payments through the year. A "share" of produce is priced according to whatever the same items would cost in the grocery store (at commercial, not "organic", prices). Subsequent shares can be purchased with labor at a $6 per hour exchange rate. Labor must be completed before produce is delivered. For instance, if somebody wants a $10 weekly package for the 20-week growing season, they need two $100 shares.

Thank goodness for databases and spreadsheets and our own ability to choose not to be too anal-retentive about exact numbers sometimes! Nobody who helps in our gardens ever goes home hungry.

We make no distinction between people who take working shares because they like gardening, and those who take working shares because it's vital that they be able to stretch their food-buying dollar. None of our business and it has nothing to do with their value as human beings. This attitude is a lot of what we're all about, too -- living well and having value doesn't have to always be about money.

Part of our mission -- and our challenge -- is to run our farm in a business model but not to use a P&L statement as our only measure of success. This works for us but might not work for everybody.

Part of the price I pay right now is holding a job 250 miles away from home in order to keep the farm project economically healthy, preparing to spend six months even farther away on another assignment (in Europe). Great caretaker/partners are making this possible, but it's still a price.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living
Corning, NY
http://www.ic.org/agrove/index.htm

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page