The LocalHarvest Blog

photo by Maplewood Organics

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

I spent the weekend thinking about what motivates people to join CSAs. 'Tis the sign-up season, after all, and tens of thousands of you are coming to LocalHarvest to look for a CSA farm near you. Researchers say that most people joining a CSA anticipate that their dinner menus will change as a result, and they are up for the challenge. "Veggies we've never heard of? Bring them on!" This is brave. There are few things as personal as our habitual eating patterns, and to consciously turn over some portion of the control for what you'll cook night after night for a some months is a big deal.

Often it goes swimmingly. I can not tell you how many times I have heard people compare opening their weekly CSA box to Christmas morning. Whether it's the freshness and flavor of the food, the feeling of belonging to a farm, the knowledge that their children are eating better, the satisfaction of eating locally, or all of the above, many people simply love being part of a CSA.

And it's not for everyone. Many CSAs lose 10-40% of their members at year's end. For some members the necessary culinary creativity becomes a burden instead of a joy. Others find they don't actually cook as much as they thought, or hoped to. Still others get a bad case of greens fatigue. For all of us interested in seeing the CSA movement thrive, it is as important to pay attention to the rationale of people who decide not to re-join a CSA as it is to take in the praise of the enthusiasts.

If CSAs are to keep up their impressive growth trajectory, farms will need to attract more and more "mainstream eaters". That, in turn, requires CSA farmers and CSA members to work together to find the right balance of unfamiliar items and old standbys, the right quantity of food so members don't waste, and where feasible, giving members some level of choice.

We would love to hear about your experiences with CSA. If you've been a CSA member for years, what do you like best about it? If you tried CSA but decided not to join again, what was your reason? For both groups, what do you wish you'd have known about CSA before you joined? If you'd like to share your thoughts, please do so here.

We saw a great little video this month called, "Community Supported Agriculture: What to expect when you join a farm." I highly recommend it for all who are considering joining a CSA for the first time. Great advice, straight from CSA farmers themselves!

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

My husband spends his days teaching science to 150 seventh graders. If you remember your seventh grade science teacher, you know that one of the job requirements is being utterly unflappable. Check: virtually nothing fazes this man. So when he came home last week all worked up about a news story, I put down what I was doing and listened.

It seems that in this land of milk and honey, the home of the free and the brave, one in six children don't always have enough to eat.

If you are like me, it is difficult to take in statistics like this. It is hard to believe that our nation has to grapple with both a childhood obesity epidemic and millions of hungry kids. The issue is made more slippery by the irony that in some cases these are the same children - overweight because junkfood is cheap, and living in homes where they sometimes have to skip meals. But as my husband shook his head in disbelief, "One in SIX, Erin - here!" I knew he was thinking of his students. Five classes of 30 twelve year olds: statistically, 25 of his kids would fall into the "food insecure" category. That's not a lot of kids compared to the 17 million who sometimes go hungry, but five per class sure does make it real.

I went back to the CNN story that Ed had read about the "new hungry." The line that got me was this, "And, the winter school holidays add to the woes of families in financial despair. Many parents will need to find alternative ways to provide breakfasts and lunches." Right - when kids are home from school for a break, the grocery bill goes way up. So in addition to the incalculable internal pressure to do right by their kids in the Christmas gift department, millions of parents are also worrying about whether there will be enough in the fridge to make lunch over break.

That's just the quantity issue. Quality is another thing. It's no secret that the dominant food system is making us sicker and fatter than ever. I could go on and on about this, but let me give you a visual instead, an obesity animation from the Center for Disease Control. It is amazing.

The good news is that there is so much work to be done on this one that there's plenty of room for everyone to find something they can do to help. Last week I received two emails from representatives of food banks looking to work with local farmers to increase the amount of fresh produce they can offer their clients, and another email from someone working to encourage CSAs in her area to offer subsidized shares for low income people. These community based efforts give me hope that in 2011 we will make some progress toward feeding our children not only enough, but well.

We'd love to hear your thoughts. If you'd like to comment on this story, please do so here.

Here, with thanks to John Robbins, is my prayer for the New Year.

May all be fed.
May all be healed.
May all be loved.

Take good care,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Several years ago when eating at a good friend's home, we joined in her family's table blessing: "We are thankful for this food, and that we are together." Doesn't that just about sum it up? We loved it. When our daughter was old enough, we taught the blessing to her and it became part of our family's supper ritual. Now our girl is about to turn four, and of late has been having a hard time making it through the entire grace before pulling her hands from ours and digging in. When that happens we all take a breath and start the blessing over. If we race through the words, or miss half of them, it doesn't really count. It is the pause that is important.

All told, our blessing takes just a few seconds, but those few seconds are important to me. In them I arrive more fully at the table, after rushing around preparing food and taking care of the business of the household. In them I really look at my family and at the food in front of us and in seeing them and it more deeply can move into the evening with more grace than I otherwise would.

It's a good week for a much longer pause. Though it is easy to look around and see much that needs fixing, there is also so much for which to be grateful. On my list are Rae, Nick, Kathy, Paul and Emily – the farmers from whom my family buys much of our food. I am grateful to them, and to all family farmers, for their labor and the love they put into it.

In a time of increasingly rancorous political polarization, I am grateful for every instance of civil and engaged debate. Last month I wrote a short article about Walmart's plans to begin stocking local food in its grocery aisles. Figuring that some of you would have something to say about the idea, we had intended to open up the article for public comments, but somewhere in the flurry of preparing the newsletter for publication, we forgot. Several people took the time to write to me, which I appreciated. They raised such disparate valid points that we thought the whole conversation ought to continue. With their permission, we are reprinting them below. If you would like to add your two cents, please do! We would like to hear what you think. And if you missed the original article, here it is.

On my list of things to be grateful for is Judith McGeary of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance. Judith has been working tirelessly to protect small scale farmers from illogical and overly burdensome regulations in the upcoming Food Safety Bill. Legislative action is hard slogging work, and Judith and her comrades have stayed with this one for some 18 months now. Thanks, Judith! The final vote is near, and success is within reach! Judith says the Senate needs to hear from a lot of people, so please see our action alert below, and call your Senator in support of the Tester Amendment.

Finally, I am grateful for the millions of people who are making a habit of purchasing some of their food locally. We are creating a sustainable food system, one strong family farm at a time! May this new system serve all of us well: may we all find wholesome, affordable food there, may the labor that went into raising it be valued, and may the food itself be consumed with gratitude.

In this Thanksgiving week, may your tables be laden and your hearts and bellies full.
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

In college I dated someone whose response to ambiguous news was always, "Who's to say what is good and what is bad?" At 22 I thought myself an excellent judge of the good and the bad. Needless to say, the relationship didn't last. I have thought of his question often over the years, though, and it came back to me last week when I read the New York Times article describing Walmart's decision to make a major investment in local and sustainable foods.

On one hand, the thought of Walmart sticking its gigantic foot in the local food door seems potentially ruinous. The company is known for setting extremely low prices with its suppliers, and the margins on real food are already achingly slim. Would contracts with Walmart actually help farmers, or ultimately hurt them?

On the other hand, Walmart is going to get its apples and broccoli and onions from somewhere. It might as well be close to home, with some type of sustainable practices. Decentralizing food production is a good idea. If the planet's biggest grocer turns sustained attention toward buying a significant amount of local food (which, according to the Times, they define as within the state) they could do a great deal to encourage the establishment and growth of mid-sized farms across the country. That would be a good thing.

Walmart may be able to procure foods grown within certain geographic boundaries, but for many of us, local food means more than that. For me, "local food" is a kind of shorthand for an entire ethic. In this ethic, food is produced under quality conditions, on a scale that feels human rather than corporate, by people whose focus is on natural resource stewardship as much as it is on the bottom line, in a business whose owners do right by their employees. On the consumer side of this ethic, the food is purchased, prepared and eaten with awareness of its true value.

All week I have been thinking about what single word would capture the feeling behind this ideal. The word I came up with was 'kindness'. In my estimation, there is a broad, radical kindness that underlies the emerging alternative food economy, which ultimately is an economy based on relationship. It is hard for me to imagine that kindness and relationships are at the heart of the megastore's buy local campaign. But it is also hard for me to imagine a future without grocery store chains. I fully expect that the groundswell of support for authentic food and small farmers will continue to grow and flourish. If, alongside it, the nation's grocers begin engaging local farmers in their response to consumer demand for higher quality food, and if farmers are able to get fair prices, that would also be a good thing.

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

Late summer and fall find me in the kitchen a few more hours a week than usual, squirreling away food for the winter. Pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, pickled jalapenos, frozen greens, applesauce, dried tomatoes - every year the list gets a little longer and we eat a little better. I am not alone: home canning is making a comeback, thanks to both the recent surge of interest in gardening and the growing number of people looking to eat local food throughout the winter. "It's almost like a three step evolution - first people recognize the benefits of eating local food, then they grow some of their own, and then inevitably they realize that a whole lot of food is ripe at once and you have to do something with it!" says Lori Evesque, who teaches canning classes in Southwest Michigan. Her well attended hands-on workshops are drawing people with a wide range of ages and experience levels, from those who have never laid eyes on a hot water bath canner, to those who used to preserve food years ago but want a refresher course before starting again.

Lori's experience is being repeated all over the country, as practiced food preservationists step forward to teach interested people the necessary skills. Tess Schaffner, owner of Off the Vine Market in Lanexa, VA, the food preservation classes offered by have also been well attended. The owner, says the main hurdle for people is time. "When they hear about our classes, many people's first reaction is, 'I don't have time for that!', but we show them how an investment of time making and freezing marinara sauce in the summer leads to quick, healthy meals in the winter."

As the bags under my eyes this time of year will attest, if you get bit hard by the food preservation bug, the time investment can be significant. Midnight seems to come earlier at the end of tomato season! But Tess is right about the time savings later. Last month I froze a dozen bags of enchilada sauce after experimenting with how to adapt my favorite recipe to use homegrown fresh tomatoes instead of canned sauce. It is delicious, if I do say so myself. Even better, I'm all set up to make some very fine, reasonably easy meals. We freeze a lot of greens too. Once a week through the winter I will pull out a bag of blanched kale from the freezer in the morning, let it thaw until suppertime, and then in about 15 minutes have a beautiful white bean, rosemary, kale dish on the supper table, with enough left over for lunches the next day. Nutritious, quick, and home made - worth a few late nights in the summer.

One recipe I would recommend if you want to try making just one thing this fall is homemade applesauce. It is easy, delicious, nutritious, inexpensive, and almost everyone loves it. You can freeze it in bags, can it in jars, or eat it right away. There are lots of ways to make it, but one recipe is found in a great new book about food preservation, Put 'em Up! Thanks to Storey Publishing, we will have a copy of this new title for six lucky newsletter readers. See below for details, and try something new!

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

The quality of food served in our nation's schools has been the focus of much attention recently, and if you have so much as walked through a school cafeteria in the last decade, you know why. Our kids deserve better. We at LocalHarvest have great admiration for those who are working to reform the complicated system that is our national school lunch program. A significant opportunity will come when the House takes up the Child Nutrition Act after their summer recess. The current school nutrition bill expires on September 30th, so stand by for an action-packed couple of weeks in late September. If you want updates, you can sign up with our friends at Slow Food USA who have been working hard on this.

There ends the overtly political part of this article. The remainder is devoted to another, perhaps even more difficult aspect of our children's nutrition: the food we feed them at home.

When I was a little kid, maybe five or six, my mother got religion about nutrition. One day the cupboard held Honeycomb cereal and Wonder Bread, and the next day we were eating Grapenuts and dense Russian black bread. As you might imagine, plenty of whining ensued. We still ate dessert and very occasional processed snacks, but by and large, the junk was gone and the garden was in. Nutrition was taken seriously. Mom took a lot of flak from all of us, but her response always was, "I feed you this way because I love you and I want what's best for you."

Kind of hard to argue with that.

Yet so often we parents take the easier route. We feed our kids a steady diet of mac and cheese and hot dogs, bananas and sugar and call it "kid food", as if the young of our species require soft, sweet, pasty food for survival. By and large, the culinary expectations of children in our society are ridiculously low. That could be chalked up to a cultural oddity if the consequences weren't so high. Research on the impact of daily nutrition on a child's ability to learn in school is unequivocal: kids must have real food to learn. And in this age of soaring obesity rates, the fact that eating habits picked up in childhood carry over to adulthood is a grave concern.

It's hard. We all know that in a media environment of merciless child-focused junk food marketing, parents' job is made even harder. For those of us who want to choose really high quality foods, the definitions and choices can be dizzying. I have a lot of compassion for families who are too busy, worn out, overscheduled, and unsupported to cook good food and model disciplined eating habits. But it's worth the effort. Kids aren't born knowing why adequate protein, vegetables, and whole grains are important. They need to be taught, and until they can make good choices for themselves, good choices must be made for them. I think Mom was right: it's what love requires.

Last year, my daughter's daycare was considering making some changes to its food plan. They invited input from parents, and I ended up writing a document with some suggestions for serving more nutrient-dense foods, getting kids to eat them, setting priorities, and budgeting for higher quality foods. It's by no means comprehensive or authoritative, but I offer a version of this document below in the hope that it may spark some conversation about how we as a nation, and as individuals, feed ourselves and our children. We love to hear from you.

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

"You're doing what?" my sister asked, not even trying to keep the horror out of her voice as I told her our weekend plans.

"We're going to learn how to butcher chickens," I said.

"Auggh. WHY?"

That is the question, and one I'm still answering a week after the experience. Because a farm near us was offering a class. Because it seems like a skill worth having. Because we eat meat.

This month I write about my afternoon at the chicken processing class, why farms are beginning to offer this kind of event, and why people like me are signing up. Also in this issue, we unveil the CSA management software Guillermo has spent approximately 7,492 hours perfecting. And finally, in honor of the long awaited blueberry season, we submit "Ellen's Blueberry Concoction" for your consideration.

As always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

A couple of months ago, I spent an hour with Andy Grant, the farmer from one of the biggest community supported agriculture programs in the country. Last year, Grant Family Farms in Wellington, Colorado had over 3,000 CSA members. I have to admit that I went into our conversation thinking that there was no way a CSA could operate on that scale and be true to the core values of community supported agriculture. I have to say, I was happily surprised. In this month's main article, we take a look at what big CSAs can and can't offer, and how they can keep the 'community' aspect of CSA strong.

Also in this issue we include an appeal for all readers to please pick up the phone and call your Senators on behalf of the much anticipated food safety bill. It is heading for a vote quite soon and needs broad public support to ensure that the final version treats small scale farmers fairly. Take five minutes to support your local farmers through wise public policy!

Enjoy the Spring and as always, take good care and eat well,
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

As we move toward Spring, CSA sign-up season continues and so too our series of articles about community supported agriculture. This month, we focus on the human bonds that sometimes take root in a CSA. After talking with several farmers about the friendship, cooperation and community growing on their farms, we feel like the farm's most valuable "product" may be the relationships it fosters, with exceptional produce being a happy byproduct. This is a poetic viewpoint, I know, and not one that accurately describes all CSAs. Still, read about what is going on at Terra Bella Family Farm and A Place on Earth CSA, and see if you don't agree that these CSAs offer an unparalleled opportunity for people to find a piece of the "something more" that so many of us seek.

Happy Spring, and long, light days to all.
Take good care and eat well –
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

This is the time. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the country are signing up for a CSA. Visions of tender new potatoes, taut, warm melons, and tomatoes, always tomatoes dance in their heads. Many – most – will end the season deliciously satisfied. Some, though, will not be pleased with their CSA experience. This month's newsletter is devoted to maximizing your chances of finding yourself among the sated and contented.

Know Thyself
Utterly fantastic idea though it is, community supported agriculture is not for everyone. Deciding whether or not CSA is for you requires a healthy dose of self knowledge. Some of us confuse how we are with how we would like to be. Not that there's no room for movement, but if you truly do not like vegetables, signing up to receive five to 20 pounds of them a week is probably not going to go well. When considering whether or not to join a CSA, there are a few questions that you might ask yourself. Be sure to answer for yourself and the people you live with since asking other people to change their eating habits is no small thing. (Read more...)

As always, take good care and eat well.
Erin

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

In most parts of the country, winter is CSA sign up season. With this month's issue of the newsletter, we're starting a four-part series on all things CSA, which will include articles on how to choose a CSA (February), what happens when CSAs go big (March) and how one farm's members are creating an alternate economy within the CSA community (April).

Earlier this month we participated in a workshop about the future of CSA at the EcoFarm Conference in Pacific Grove, CA. Putting together our presentation gave us the opportunity to dig deep into our CSA database and pull out some numbers we found quite interesting. Like: the average sized CSA in the U.S. has 96 members, but the median is 47. If it's been a while since statistics class, that means that half of all CSAs have more than 47 members, and half have fewer. There are a lot of small CSAs out there! What we notice from talking with a lot of CSA farmers is that many people start small with their CSA and then increase the number of shares they offer — sometimes quite rapidly — once their systems are in place and tested. From our vantage point, both the slow and careful start and the eventual growth are important elements of the economic viability of the model.

For those who like numbers, here are a few more. Of the 3,229 CSAs listed with LocalHarvest, we have 'size' data for 2766. Of those, 2,202 have 100 or fewer shareholders, another 504 offer 101 - 500 shares, and finally, 60 farms have more than 500 CSA members. Extrapolating from those numbers, we see that CSAs of 100 shareholders or less serve 25% of all CSA members in the country. Those in the 101 - 500 braket serve 52% of CSA members, and large CSAs of 500 or more supply 23% of all subscribers.

To put this in context, the total number of shares offered by our CSAs is about 390,000. That number represents one-half of one percent (0.5%) of all households in the U.S. That might not sound like a lot, but when we mapped out the growth curve, it was impressive! If the number of CSAs keeps growing at the same rate as CSAs have been joining our site over the last three years, by 2020, there will be over 18,000 CSAs in the U.S.

For even more fun, Guillermo animated the growth of CSAs in a little movie, which you can see here. Each green triangle represents one CSA farm, and the dates shown are drawn from data reported by the farmers themselves. It's a neat little visual, and takes just 12 seconds of your life.

Many of you are among the country's 390,000+ CSA members. If you've had a good experience, maybe you'll consider talking to a few friends about joining a CSA in your area. And if you have never given CSA a try, would like to be part of a local farm, and enjoy eating veggies, like to cook, you may be a perfect candidate for CSA membership! You can find one near you with our search engine.

To the start of a wonderful CSA season!

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

A few years ago, my husband taught at a school for teenagers who didn't fit in any of the other schools in town. One day he asked his students how many of them regularly ate a meal with their parents. Of the ten kids who'd made it to class that day, only one raised his hand. The rest said they just fended for themselves, grazing in the cupboards when they got hungry enough to take a break from their video games. They shrugged when they said it, like it didn't matter. Most of these kids' parents were working long hours at several jobs just to get food in the house in the first place. Still, among the many hard things these kids faced, between ourselves we counted the absence of family meals high on the list.

Nowadays many families eat together only sporadically, due to parents' work schedules — driven by necessity or the habit of overwork — or to children's extracurricular activities. Yet this time is irreplaceable. It is, to my mind, what makes a house a home, and part of what makes a group of people a family. These are the people I come home to at the end of the day, and cook for and sit with; this is the hour we bless with our presence to one another.

There is much attention being given these days to the need to improve the quality of food served in our nation's public schools, and rightly so. To serve our children the best food, grown with care by farmers who are also part of the community in which the children reside is a sensible and widely beneficial thing.

But let us also remember the value of the meals we share at home.

Last night I spent an hour making supper, as I do almost every evening, and at some point between chopping the garlic and browning the onions, these thoughts came loudly to my mind, "I love to cook. I love to make food for my family." Yes, I thought, as I listened to my husband and daughter playing in the next room, this is a sweet part of the day. And then we sat down together, lit some candles, said our grace — "Thank You for this food, and that we are together" — and ate.

Cooking and eating together need not be elaborate, but it is best, it seems to me, when it is consistent. Like most such commitments — planting the seed planted in early spring, bringing the baby home from the hospital — the fruit may be months or years in the ripening.

At all times, but especially in this season of holiday bustle and stress, may we all slow down long enough to invite one another to the table, and when we get there, to look around and welcome with gratitude those who have gathered.

As always, take good care and eat well,

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

This time of year, people from the North often ask us how they can keep buying local food through the winter. In the produce realm, I usually recommend becoming familiar with winter storage crops – apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, onions, garlic, beets, carrots, and other root crops – and looking for signs in your grocery store to see if any come from local farms. Depending on where you live, hardy greens may also be available through the winter. It's helpful, too, to think beyond produce, and see if there are local options for eggs, dairy products, honey, meat, beans and grains.

Going to the pantry to get a pint of your own pickles in January might not be quite as satisfying as going out to the garden with a salad bowl in August and coming back with supper, but it's close. The desire to eat high quality local food through the winter is prompting more and more of us to preserve some of the bounty from the hot summer months. Whether the produce will come from your garden, a CSA or the farmers market, this winter you can lay plans to stock your freezer with roasted tomatoes, blanched greens, tomato sauce and frozen berries. If you ask for a canner for Christmas, you will be able to make applesauce and jam, and enjoy your own salsa all year long.

Putting even a little attention on eating 'winter food' over the coming months deepens our connection to the flow of the seasons, and to the earth itself. Deep greens, brilliant oranges – nature offers us bold colors in its darkest season. Rather than focusing on all the foods we “can't” have when we choose to eat seasonally and locally, we may notice a growing sense of appreciation for the abundance and variety of nourishment the land offers to us in each season. For this food, we give thanks.

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, we are also thankful for the ongoing support so many people are giving to family farmers, even in this time of economic hardship. Your commitment to creating a sustainable food system is one of the blessings for which we at LocalHarvest are grateful this season.

May your tables be laden and your hearts and bellies full,

Erin Barnett
Director
LocalHarvest