Sherry Chandler » Another way to reach sustainability?
Another way to reach sustainability?
CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. — In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.
On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.
“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.
Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon — in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.
The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
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4 Comments
1. MSW replies at 12th July 2008, 10:36 am :
It’s, at the least, a rather intriguing idea. And it does show that some people are thinking about where their food comes from, and that those who produce it need help to keep doing so. Especially if you want decent food, instead of mass-produced, chemically sprayed, genetically-engineered zombie food. But the idea that they are, as the article states “in essence, hiring personal farmers” kind of bothers me. Maybe I’m reading it entirely wrong, but I can’t help feeling that that has something of a feudal ring to it. As long as it stays fair and equitable, I think I’d be all for it. But I think I’d be wary of entering into such a deal myself. Especially if I was the one doing the actual work.
Too cynical?
2. koshembos replies at 12th July 2008, 5:21 pm :
What is wrong with most of us buying our produce, cheese and even meat at farmer markets? The prices at farmer markets are not low and are generally comparable to supermarket prices. In a farmers market the farmers earns way more than when they sell to supermarket chains.
Supermarket products are typically tasteless, plastic and manufactured rather then one gets at farmer markets.
3. sherry replies at 12th July 2008, 7:57 pm :
Koshembos & MSW, I don’t think I’d want to do sell shares in my own farm, though I certainly shop farmer’s markets for superior produce, but I’m not really trying to make a go of it as a farm. I wonder if Europe is less devoted to private ownership of land whereas the U.S. was sort of founded on the notion of homesteading and owning your own land. I’m sure that’s an idea that can be ripped to shreds. Just thinking out of my fingers on the keyboard.
4. koshembos replies at 13th July 2008, 5:10 am :
As a farmer market fanatic who has shopped markets all over Europe and even in China I can definitely say that European farmers have their own land as do farmers in the US. The big difference is that markets are typically open daily, have just local produce and way more people buy in these markets.
Farmer markets located near large bodies of water in Europe have large fish and seafood sections. In the US I live on the Atlantic shore and can buy plenty of fish brought from Asia, but nothing caught locally.
All in all, it’s not the land; it’s the demand that makes the difference.
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