Community Agriculture Plans Offer Members a Connection to the Land

By Leah Carliner

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Getting kids to eat the vegetables they like can be hard enough, but when Cindy Bjornsen was receiving bushels of kale delivered to her doorstep in Broadlands, the job got a little harder.

Bjornsen was a member of a community-supported agriculture plan - a program designed to assure farmers a constant flow of revenue. Community members pledge a seasonal fee to local farmers, and in return, receive the farm’s best crops of the season.

For a member looking to support local business or wanting to make a connection to the farming community, CSAs can be ideal. But for a household looking to stock its refrigerator, factors like the weather and a farmer’s crop limitations can make a CSA unattractive. CSAs can only provide households with the season’s harvest, which can frustrate members who have become accustomed to out-of-season produce that is readily available in grocery stores.

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Sharon Draznin shows off her largest green bean pick of the day. (Leah Carliner)

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Sharon and her son Lee Draznin take a break in the fields while picking green beans at Great Country Farms. (Leah Carliner)

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Great Country Farms owner Debbie Zurschmeide rings up the Draznins extra bundle of peaches. (Leah Carliner)

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Lee Draznin helps his mother Sharon walk through the farm fields on their way from the peach trees to a patch of green beans. (Leah Carliner)

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Community supported agriculture member Stephanie Soos gets her share of the best peaches at Great Country Farms. (Leah Carliner)

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From left, Chris Powell and wife Christi Carmouse pick peaches at Great Country Farms. (Leah Carliner)

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When Bjornsen shared a bushel from Great Country Farms with her neighbor two years ago, the drought caused regional farmers to produce an overload of kale, a vegetable from the cabbage family.

“It was very nice produce,” Bjornsen said, “you [just] didn’t have a lot of say in it.”

The package was often too much for her family to eat, so she gave some of her CSA bundle away to neighbors. Bjornsen has not since renewed her membership.

Click this map to view community supported agriculture programs in Loudoun.

At Great Country Farms in Bluemont, shares can cost up to $889 for a 20-week season, but the price varies depending on whether the bundle is delivered or picked up at the farm. Members can also buy a half share for a reduced price of $389, if they pick it up at the farm.

CSAs originated in the 1960s in Switzerland and Japan as a partnership between consumers looking for fresh produce and farmers looking for a stable income. The concept migrated to the United States in the mid 1980s, and now more than 600 CSAs are registered with the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association.

In Purcellville, Potomac Vegetable Farms’ owner Ellen Polishuk said she thinks some people sign up for CSAs to force themselves into a healthier lifestyle. But by the end of the harvest, “people end up getting grumpy,” she said.

“It’s sort of like signing up for the gym,” Polishuk said. “Lots of people sign up, and they don’t renew.”

But residents are signing up at a consistent pace, and Loudoun CSAs are growing in popularity. The county has four working CSAs, according to the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development. Each of them has sold out all of their shares for the current harvest season.

Debbie Zurschmeide, one of Great Country’s owners, said its CSA program, which has space for 600 members, closed nearly three months ahead of schedule this year. Other local CSAs that are registered with the county include Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship in Purcellville, Potomac Vegetable Farms and Tree and Leaf in Waterford.

Luke Wiseman, the owner of Stoneybrook Farm, said he put an ad on his farm’s Web site in 2007 asking people to sign up for the CSA he plans to launch next year. Wiseman said the feedback has been tremendous and estimated he’s received upwards of 400 e-mails.

Yet, Wiseman hesitated launching his own CSA because of some negative feedback he heard from another local farmer.

“These farmers get this money, and they have to make people happy for the next four or five months,” Wiseman said, adding that the weather makes it impossible for farmers to deliver a consistent crop from year to year.

CSA members share in the risk of the farmer, just as shareholders take a risk when they buy into the stock market, Wiseman said. In a dry year, CSA members get less variety than they would in a more bountiful year. But, unlike in the stock market, they still get something in return for their investment.

For Sterling resident Stephanie Soos, there’s no better way to connect to the agriculture community.

Soos, whose husband Todd comes from a farming family, said she has spent every Saturday for the past four years at Great Country picking up her produce and plucking the ripest harvest from the ground herself.

Most CSAs deliver to members’ doors or to a neighborhood representative, but some, like Great Country, allow members to pick the produce from the fields.

Soos said she usually brings her 7-year-old son Riley, and together they learn about the land and meet other CSA members.

“It’s a warm and open environment,” she said.

So when Riley’s school nurse called Soos in June to say that her son had eaten a wild root, Soos said she wasn’t concerned.

“We asked him about it, and he was like, ‘No, it was an onion,’” Soos said.

But Loudouners are not the only ones who support the farms. Lee Draznin, a Fairfax resident and father of three, has been a member of Great Country for five years now.

Through the experience, he and his family have learned how to eat seasonally. His children now know which fruits and vegetables are in season. For example, they know that June is strawberry month and that the sweet, plump berries will be great during that month.

More than anything, he said he joined because he wanted his children to “know that food doesn’t grow from the Giant.”

Tagged: Blue Ridge Center, farms, Great Country Farms, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Stoneybrook Farm, Tree and Leaf

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