CSA Farm Share 2009: Week 16 and then some

[surrealestate]

Last week, Parker Farm said that due to this year's horrid conditions, shares would have to be canceled for the rest of the season. I was, of course, quite sad over the news, but given the situation all over the state, it wasn't entirely surprising. A few days later, Steve changed his mind and announced that, with some small changes and understanding that hauls would likely be smaller, things would, in fact continue. Yay! Too bad he didn't just start out by saying there'd be no drop-off that week, which would have saved an assortment of annoyance on various sides.

Ironically, despite that, last week was the biggest total haul of the year, because my share partner and I went out to Red Fire on Monday to harvest and came home with a metric buttload, then I helped Steve a bit at the farmer's market Saturday which yielded as much as I could carry on my bike. A lot of CSA members had stopped by to say hi and offer support. It was good to see. And because Steve is awesome, he sent us all home with extras.

The official drop-off:

• [no Parker drop-off]
  --
• 1 lb sweet peppers
• 4 small hot peppers
• 2 eggplant
• 1 bunch kale
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 bunch dill
• 1 small winter squash
• 1 small head cabbage
• 11 oz broccoli
• 1 lb summer squash
  --
• 1 lb peaches
• 1/2 peck apples

Harvest at the farm included four qts of cherry tomatoes, 4+ qts yellow and green beans, 2 qts raspberries, dozens of hot peppers, and over 30 pounds of tomatillos.

Farmers market yield included 2 bunches arugula, 2 of Asian turnips, a gaggle of purple-top turnips and parsnips, 1 bunch cilantro, 1 head lettuce, and an embarrassing quantity of hen of the woods mushrooms.

And on the food preservation front:
Canned: tomatillo salsa verde, more tomatillo salsa verde, roasted red pepper spread
Dried: tomatoes, apples, apple powder, oregano, parsley, rosemary, green & yellow beans, mushrooms
Froze: blackberries

I hope everyone who went for it had an easy fast (mine wasn't too bad).

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

I was a bit bothered with the decision to sell to farmers' markets while discontinuing CSA, because it seemed like selling the same vegetables twice (because the implication, with no additional information available, was that there weren't enough veggies for both, so he was concentrating on the markets to get some extra cash). The later, more elaborated explanation was more about "don't have the non-vegetable resources to make CSA happen (e.g. pickers, auto fuel), so I'm selling at the farmers' market instead." And that made me feel better about it.

The commitment is 2-sided: the shareholder agrees to put up money and accept the risk that the fields flood and there's no crop; the farmer agrees that if there *is* a crop, he'll give some reasonable amount to the shareholder in exchange for the up-front money. I'm fine with that as a deal; I'm less fine with "even if I have vegetables, I might decide to do something else with them rather than give them to you."

But it's really about the communication, as you say -- e.g. last year(?), when he said "I'm having trouble with high oil prices, please chip in extra." I found that entirely reasonable and did so.

Also, I think there's something about how people respond to panic-inducing situations, both in terms of decision-making and communications timing. Many people's instinct is to try to Put Out The Fire As Soon As Possible, meaning make some sort of decision, announce and implement as fast as they can -- and then when they've settled down a little and slept on it, to realize that there was probably a better solution. I empathize with that, even as it frustrates me to be on the receiving end.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I mostly agree with what you've said, except I don't think it's wrong for him to sell at the markets. If he wasn't already doing so, that might be different, but I guess I'd ask why is he obligated to stop doing that versus stopping the pick-ups? I don't agree that the farmer is saying that if there is any food at all, we get it, and I would very surprised to hear about other CSA farms interpreting it that way given what I've seen of how they work. No farm is going to put the shares ahead of their own survival, and I don't think they should.

But yeah, while I'd bet he could have managed a drop-off last week, even if it was meager, I think your last paragraph is dead-on about the process. Add to that that he's a perfectionist when it comes to his vegetables, so to him, a meager share would be worse than nothing, even though the rest of us would obviously appreciate it.

For me personally, it also matters that I trust him to do what needs to done (as long as it doesn't involve communication :), and I believe that trust was borne out when he announced just a few days later that pick-ups would continue.


The contrast in various comments was still rather striking, with some people going on about "where's my refund?!?" while many others were insisting they didn't want any money or vouchers back, and could they pay now for next year if that would help.

[desireearmfeldt]

(And really, if he'd cancelled last week without immediately announcing what he was going to do, like you suggested in your post, that wouldn't have freaked people out -- or *shouldn't* have, anyway. That's totally within the "risk we signed up for.")

"No farm is going to put the shares ahead of their own survival"... I keep waffling about what I think about this. They're counting on the share payments for their survival, aren't they? And the shares are investment, not charity: weathering the ups and downs is one thing, but the share-purchaser does expect something in exchange for the money, in the long run (that is, if over several years one was never satisfied with what one received from farmshare, one would be perfectly justified in taking one's money elsewhere).

Perhaps it's the difference between buying a ticket to a fundraiser show to support one's community theatre group, and giving a donation -- if you show up to the fundraiser with your ticket and it's been cancelled in favor of throwing resources to the mainstage show, that might be a necessary decision on the group's part, but they've broken faith with the audience. Rather than asking for donations, they've...taken donations, from people who thought they were coming to see a show. And those people might donate if asked for donations, but that's not what they were asked for.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Yes, the shares are an investment, but it's rarely a farm's only source of income. Given that we were already 15 weeks in, though, I'd be more inclined to compare it to having bought a ticket to a fundraiser performance only to show up and find out one or more of the acts isn't going to be there.

I suspect the long-term may be a factor as well. I've been with Steve for four years and enjoyed excessive bounty for pretty much all of that time. I don't feel short-changed this year and past experience led me to conclude he'd come up with a way to do the right thing by folks, even if I had no idea what that right thing might be. Even the day of the announcement, I had no intention to leave him. (Bitching and moaning, otoh, is another story. Those are some of my favorite hobbies. ;)

My biggest complaint was and continues to be the comm issue. I think the same decision would have been taken very differently if it followed weeks of being told what was up. I've offered to help him with that on several occasions, but the problem is that once the season starts, he's too busy with the fields to deal.

[desireearmfeldt]

Fair enough. And yeah, communication is the fundamental issue.