I didn’t grow up living on a farm, but my parents did, and they had plenty of insight that came from the experience that they consistently tried to impart on me and my siblings. With all of the trips to visit the farm in my youth, and all the stories my parents have told, on top of living in rural areas for my high school and early college years, I’d say that I have a pretty decent idea of what the experience entails.
I was reading an article recently about the way federal farm subsidies work, no doubt by rules that were set long ago, before the suburban sprawl. It turns out that if your land is within a zone or tract that was identified as farmland, you get a check in some instances, even if you don’t farm anything. The man being interviewed in the article wanted to give the money back in good conscience, but found that if he did, it would be dispersed to all the other households that are on that original tract, and he felt like it should be used to help farmers who are having a tough time financially.
That brings me to a similar discussion point.
I have been searching out organic food a lot more lately, and have recently discovered the idea of a CSA farm. CSA is Community Supported Agriculture. The idea is that an organic farmer plants and produces a variety of products, and instead of selling them to vendors, where they are shipped all over and marked up for our consumption, they are given to shareholders. Becoming a shareholder of a CSA farm involves a financial commitment, usually for a 6-month period. This commitment has very high returns:
- You are directly supporting local agriculture
- You get either 1/4 or a half bushel weekly of organic produce for your household
- You are helping your local economy
- By consuming the organic produce, you are being a better owner for your body
What’s even better than all of this is that many CSA farms have “drop points”, where your weekly delivery can be delivered. This allows you to get the food more conveniently. If you live or work close by your chosen CSA farm, they often offer discounted rates on your share if you offer some of your time. The farms I have seen this option for require as little as two hours per week, and will take off as much as half the price of the share in exchange. If you want to look for a CSA farm in your area, I found a really good resource HERE. Just plug in your zip code and hit search. The data is really good at that site, and the search works great, but I can see where they might need to add addresses of drop points to the search, so that people can see all of the options for their location(s).