Fresh Idea Consumers Can Help Support Organic Farmers In Exchange For A Summer Supply Of Produce

If you want a steady supply of fresh vegetables this summer, you could start hoeing, planting, watering and weeding, and hope for the best.

Or you could fork over a few hundred dollars now in return for a regular ration of just-picked produce — and support small, local farmers in the process.

It’s called “Community Supported Agriculture,” or CSA for short. Like most good ideas, it’s simple: Each member pays the farmer a flat fee in the spring, and receives a weekly supply of produce (usually organic) through the summer.

Farmers not only get guaranteed sales of their crops, but the money comes early in the growing season, when cash typically is tight. Members get the freshest produce possible, often at cheaper prices than at a store or farmer’s market.

And both get to better know each other, understand each other, appreciate each other.

“People had a (local) food system in place for thousands of years,” says Chrys Ostrander of Tolstoy Farms near Davenport, Wash., which started a CSA for Spokane customers last year. “Now you drive up to a window and get food and you have no idea where it came from, whether the people cared about you at all.

“A CSA is one way for the farm to again become a local institution that has respect, involvement in the community.”

The concept took root in Japan in the mid-1960s, where it’s called “teikei” - which translates to “putting the farmer’s face on food.” It spread to Europe and then the United States, starting in New England in the mid-1980s, where the CSA label was attached.

It’s become increasingly popular in Western Washington. The current Washington Tilth Directory of organic and sustainable growers lists 33 CSA farms on the West Side, with more sprouting up all the time.

Two Eastern Washington farms started CSA programs last year, Tolstoy Farms and Kamiak View Farm outside Colfax. Both are signing up customers for a second season, starting in June.

Dapala Farm in Elk is laying the groundwork for a CSA, hoping to hit full stride next year. It now operates as an education center for sustainable agriculture, offering apprenticeships and tours.

In North Idaho, a collective of Sandpoint-area farms has been serving a small CSA clientele for the past two years. And a group of growers in the Coeur d’Alene area is talking about doing something through the farmer’s market there.

Ostrander thinks the idea will continue to blossom. “On the outskirts of Spokane County, there’s still a lot of agricultural land that isn’t being utilized to its potential,” he says.

Tolstoy Farms, a loose association of organic farmers and gardeners in a scenic valley called Mill Canyon, has long sold certified organic produce in Spokane to restaurants and natural food stores and at the Spokane MarketPlace.

Last year, to use up some of the excess production, it began serving eight CSA customers who picked up their produce each week at the MarketPlace. Tolstoy growers are aiming for 30 or more members this year.

Both buyers and farmers say the relationship is more than financial.

“We haven’t really worked out how much money people might be saving,” Ostrander says. “That’s not really the motivation. The motivation is, do they want to have a stable farm with a secure cash flow? They’re willing to pay a chunk of money each year to make that successful.”

Adds Dr. Barry Halpern, a Spokane neonatologist who participated in Tolstoy’s CSA last year: “The Tolstoy philosophy was one we were interested in supporting, the long-term goal of preserving soil fertility and topsoil.”

A CSA allows farmers to use their land more efficiently, says Diane Green of Greentree Naturals, one of five organic farms in the Sandpoint cooperative.

“I can plant accordingly, knowing my crop is sold,” she says. “I don’t have to plant an acre of something and see if I can sell it.”

Green says the CSA started with some of her farmer’s market customers who “didn’t want to have to get to the market early on Saturday morning to beat the rush for the best produce.”

Because the bulk of its business is supplying local restaurants, the cooperative is keeping its CSA small, averaging about 10 subscribers at any given time. Unlike most CSAs, that allows Green to deliver personally to customers’ homes or offices instead of having them pick up at a central location.

“Sometimes I’ll take in a bag of goodies and the whole office comes over to see what it is,” Green says. “It’s like a surprise package.”

Through its restaurant connections, the Sandpoint CSA also offers members freshly baked bread and homemade pasta. And a cut-flowers option became so popular it’s now handled through a separate subscription service.

At Kamiak View Farm, Jim Bauermeister was looking for someplace to sell his organic crops between weekly trips to the farmer’s market in Moscow, Idaho.

“A lot of stuff doesn’t last,” he explains. “Zucchini can go from cigar size to the size of a boat in a week.”

So Bauermeister started delivering to 20 CSA customers in Pullman on Wednesdays as well as Moscow on Saturdays. Unlike his zucchini, he hopes to grow gradually this year, serving 25 to 30 members.

“A CSA isn’t for everybody,” he says. “It’s for people who are into fresh vegetables, who want to eat a quantity of fresh vegetables and are willing to take the time to prepare them.”

It’s perfect for people like Donna Idol of Princeton, Idaho, near Potlatch. She and her husband, Thomas, have followed a strict vegetarian diet for the past five years, ever since he was told he’d need gall bladder surgery. (He’s fine now.)

They became regular customers at Tolstoy’s produce stands, and when they heard about the CSA, they signed up. Since they were already making weekend shopping trips to Spokane, the travel wasn’t a problem, Idol says. Besides, she adds, the drive was well worth it.

“I’ve never had produce that good,” she says. “The difference in taste was unbelievable. And everything was so fresh. It’s nice to have fresh lettuce every week, and beets - everything that we make salads with. You don’t know how long it sits in the stores.”

Idol thinks Tolstoy’s $300 membership fee is a bargain: “If I go to the (store) and buy every week what I got from them, it would cost more than that.”

The $300 buys boxes of what Ostrander describes as “what a couple of real healthy, good vegetable-eating adults would eat in a week.”

That’s also available as an “apprenticeship share” in return for four hours of farm labor each week. “It’s there for people who want produce and don’t have the money, but have four hours a week,” Ostrander says.

Bauermeister charges $400 for a full share - two grocery bags, designed to feed a family of four - or $220 for a single-bag half share. Sandpoint’s CSA operates on a monthly basis, at a cost of $17 per week.

There are no guarantees of how much produce people will get, or what varieties. As part of the deal, members share in the risk of the farm; if the carrot crop rots in the ground, they won’t be seeing carrots in their bags or boxes.

On the other hand, Ostrander says, “If we have a good growing season, those boxes are going to be very full.”

Ostrander’s partner, who goes by the name Bright Spirit, says she’s more concerned about giving customers too much than not enough.

“There’s a guilt factor,” she says. “If they end up composting some of it, they feel bad because they’re not eating all of that really good produce.”

Green, who includes recipes with her deliveries, says two of her Sandpoint customers canceled last year because they were getting too much for their money.

“They didn’t know what to do with it,” she says. “They were so used to eating packaged food, eating fresh was too much work for them.”

For customers, figuring out how to use some of the things they get can be a challenge - and an education.

“It encourages you to utilize foods that maybe you would not otherwise try,” says Halpern. “I didn’t have a lot of personal experience with eating beets, but it turned out my family became big beet fans.”

Members learn to plan their menus around what nature gives them. In early summer, that means the likes of salad greens, green onions and radishes. Summer’s peak provides peppers, tomatoes and corn. Early autumn brings potatoes and squash.

“It kind of connects customers with the seasons,” Bauermeister says.

Tolstoy hopes to nourish stronger connections by asking even paying members to contribute 12 hours of labor this season, whether it’s on the farm or such citified chores as organizing member get-togethers and mailing lists.

“It’s not that we need their labor out here,” Bright Spirit says. “The important thing is for them to be grounded in the earth, to have their hands in the soil.”

Tolstoy customer Idol says knowing the people who grow her food is comforting.

“I felt safe buying their produce,” she says. “A lot of people fudge on chemicals and things (with organic farms). After talking to them, I knew they wouldn’t. They’re very honest people, very friendly, and they know what they’re doing.”

To Bauermeister, the biggest reward was getting to know the people he was feeding.

“I had more of a relationship with them than even my regulars at the farmer’s market,” he says. “I saw them every week, got to know their families, their kids.”

And, as Bauermeister wrote in a farm journal article about his first year: “Like an old family doctor, CSA farmers watch their customers grow and mature in good health from their efforts. What work could be more satisfying?”

CSA information Interested in joining a CSA, or want more information? In Spokane, Tolstoy Farms will deliver to members this summer at the Spokane MarketPlace on Wednesdays or Saturdays. Call Chrys or Bright Spirit at (509) 725-0610. Kamiak View Farm in Colfax, Wash., will deliver to the farmer’s markets in Pullman on Wednesdays and in Moscow, Idaho, on Saturdays. Call Jim Bauermeister at (509) 397-2787. In Sandpoint, there’s a waiting list for CSA memberships; call Diane Green at (208) 263-8957. Dapala Farm in Elk is planning a CSA for next year and is looking for potential customers. Call Daniel Christman at (509) 292-0423.