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Building a Community Around Food
By
Carol L. Spence
 LEXINGTON, Ky., (July 18, 2007) –Surrounded by shopping centers,
highways and general urban sprawl, a team of growers working a
patch of land in Lexington are providing people with abundant
fresh produce, educating students in the concepts of sustainable
agriculture, and reconnecting people with their food and the
people who grow it. In short, they’re building a community.
The University of Kentucky College of Agriculture’s Community
Supported Agriculture project is in its first year at the UK
Horticulture Research Farm in south Lexington. And if the
enthusiasm that has greeted this initial endeavor is any
indication, it is off to a great start.
“I think it’s a testament to how farming can impact people,”
said Mark Williams, associate professor in the UK Department of
Horticulture and director of the college’s new Sustainable
Agriculture degree program. “I think people want to have a sense
of how their food was grown. This idea of local versus global:
how sustainable is it to be bringing in food from China versus
supporting local farmers? So that’s what community supported
agriculture is.”
The term CSA is beginning to show up more and more frequently
when the subject of local eating comes up. For a set fee,
participants can buy a half share or a full share in a farm,
which entitles them to a weekly supply of fresh produce
throughout the growing season. People who buy a share in a CSA
are sharing the responsibility of the farm, not only benefiting
from a successful growing season and the farmer’s hard work, but
also sharing part of the risk that’s inherent in farming.
Neither the selection nor the quantity of products can be
guaranteed because weather, insects and any number of other
influences can affect a crop’s yield. But that element of
surprise not only makes receiving the weekly basket of produce
exciting for consumers, it also helps them relate to the farmer
in ways that a trip to the grocery store can’t. As a result,
Williams believes, a tight-knit community composed of the
consumer and the farmer is created.
 Why the UK College of Agriculture decided to venture into CSA
territory has much to do with Williams’ view of the role the
project can play in education, extension and research.
“It’s really the cornerstone, in my opinion, of our sustainable
ag curriculum,” he said. “And the reason for that is it gives
students the full experiential farming opportunity. They can
come out here and work on this section of the farm, and during a
22-week apprenticeship they can learn every aspect of our
farming system, from soil preparation, tillage, starting seeds
in the greenhouse, direct seeding, transplanting, maintaining
the plants throughout their life, harvesting, marketing, selling
it through the CSA down on campus, so (it covers) the entire
spectrum of a farm.”
The sustainable agriculture curriculum integrates three aspects
of agriculture, what are commonly called the three pillars of
sustainability: environmental, economic and social. Students
within the program follow a rigorous, interdisciplinary
curriculum comprised of classes from each of those pillars.
Courses in both the natural and social sciences give them the
expertise they’ll need in areas such as soil management,
integrated pest management, water quality, pathology, human
nutrition and community food systems, as well as sociology,
economics and philosophy. But Williams said the CSA project
gives them something more: a real hands-on opportunity to apply
that information.
 “If they take the apprenticeship before they take the science
classes in the classroom, then all of a sudden they see things.
And then when they’re in the classroom, they say ‘I’ve seen
that. I understand now,’” he said. “Or, if they take the classes
before they come out and work on the apprenticeship, they’ll
have the background knowledge. Either way it works.”
Among the graduate students and apprentices who work on the
farm, there is a palpable enthusiasm for the project and for the
concepts behind a community built around food production. Delia
Scott, a graduate student in crop science with an emphasis in
organic and sustainable agriculture, spoke about how involving
the consumer in the process helps to alleviate the isolation
that many farmers feel.
“It makes me so happy to see that other people are happy with
what we’ve grown and what we’ve harvested,” she said. “It’s just
so cool to see people’s faces light up.”
Cheryll Frank is one of the four apprentices who work on the
farm eight hours a week during this first year of the project.
She and apprentices Christine Schraff and Jessica Ballard, have
a strong desire to find answers to some of the problems modern
society is facing – problems such as environmental issues,
accountability and providing healthy alternatives in a fast-food
world.
“This is a great learning experience because we’re seeing first
hand what you can produce with minimal inputs and what really
can be brought back to the community in the form of really
healthy food that doesn’t take a lot of fossil fuels or off-farm
inputs,” she said.
 Schraff has spent much of her adult life as a nurse, so working
in the field of sustainable agriculture was a natural extension
to her desire to try to keep people healthy through eating
nutritious foods close to home.
“For me, I like the whole idea of the fresh approach,” she said.
“You get farm fresh produce. And I like the idea of trying to
network the producers with the consumers.”
UK’s CSA is available only to UK students, faculty and staff.
The program was promoted university-wide, not just in the
College of Agriculture.
“We made a real decision to promote it across campus,” said CSA
Coordinator Mark Keating. “We wanted the rest of the university
to engage with what’s going on in the College of Agriculture.”
The plan for the first year was to sell 20 shares. Within the
first two weeks of promoting the plan on campus, all the shares
had been gobbled up. Participants came equally from all
population segments of the university: students, staff and
faculty.
“The most important thing to me about shareholder recruitment is
that we didn’t have to look very hard to find all the willing
shareholders we thought we could handle,” Keating said. “And
shareholders really defy stereotyping. They come in all shapes
and sizes, so to speak. To me, this speaks very favorably about
the potential for local growers to build their CSA membership in
the future.”
Williams and Keating are careful not to compete with local
farmers. They’ve even decided to put a time limit on how long
shareholders can participate in the CSA.
“What we want to do is get people used to a CSA and have them go
out and find one and support other farmers,” Williams said.
Williams sees the project’s focus on education as benefiting not
only students in the apprenticeship program, but the community
at large, including shareholders who learn about the benefits of
consuming locally produced food and farmers who can drop by to
see a real functioning farm and ask questions.
“It’s a real farm,” he said. “We can show the economics, we can
show the entire process now. So from an extension standpoint,
this is happening. There are farmers coming in here and looking
at this and saying, ‘Hey, how you growing these greens?’ and
‘How are you controlling bugs?’ and ‘You know, I like the way
that you’ve set this system up.’”
There’s also a research component to the project. Williams said
that because they are farming organically, they see things that
are limitations to the system. Then, elsewhere on the farm, they
can set up controlled research experiments to study those
problems with an eye toward coming up with practical solutions.
But with the CSA, all the research and all the work come down to
one thing: handing the consumer a bounty of fresh produce every
week throughout the growing season. Shareholders receive a
weekly newsletter that provides them with news from the farm,
biographies of the people growing the food and preparation ideas
for that week’s produce. Shareholders also wanted to stay in
touch with each other, so Keating arranged for a CSA listserv
where members can exchange recipes, tips and information about
local sustainable food activities. The CSA team and shareholders
will come together for a field day in August to discuss organic
gardening practices and again for a harvest celebration potluck
in October.
On a recent Thursday, Janine Brady was one of the many people
who gathered at E.S. Good Barn on the UK campus to collect their
food. She splits a share with her daughter who is a senior at
UK. Both women love to cook and the availability of freshly
picked vegetables has made it even more enjoyable for them.
Brady said that she had never cooked much with fresh greens, but
early in the season that’s what she received in her share. So as
each week passed, she has learned to cook new foods and prepare
old standards in new ways. She also said her 10-year-old child
has gotten into more vegetables and loves to cook, as well.
To Mark Williams, Brady’s story is proof that farming within a
community really can impact people’s lives.
“It’s better than I ever could imagine. You have a vision of
where you’re moving towards and what you’re trying to do. Then,
when it actually starts to happen, it happens better than you
ever anticipated. It’s a nice thing,” he said with pride.
The UK CSA is not a for-profit venture. All financial proceeds
from the sale of CSA shares are folded back into the project to
support the production of food and student educational
activities at the Horticulture Research Farm. More information
about the college’s sustainable agriculture program can be found
here. |
Contact: Mark Williams, 859-257-2638
Mark Keating, 859-257-5130
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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Copyright © 2001-2006 University of Kentucky, College of Agriculture,
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