Harvey and I have been going to the Hub City Farmers Market on most Saturday mornings for a couple of years, primarily because it gives us an opportunity to visit our grandchildren (an excuse, albeit a good one, for traveling twenty miles to buy homegrown organic vegetables).
Farmers markets have become real players in the food industry. A movement that started a few decades ago in this country has spread nationwide, and the big food industry is contributing to its growth with every food recall that hits the news. In recent years, people like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser have publicized the hidden agenda of many commercial food suppliers, and people are educating themselves and seeking out more healthful choices. Even the staunchest supporter of the big commercial food chain, the United States Department of Agriculture, has come up with its own veneer of support for the local consumer with its new slogan: Know your farmer, know your food.
We have gotten to know our farmers. In fact, in the years that we visited our local farmers market on a regular basis, we got to know our farmer so well that he and his wife are the very people who have allowed us to garden on their land. In the last couple of years, we have gotten to know other farmers through an outgrowth of the farmers market movement—Community Supported Agriculture, or CSAs.
CSAs are basically subscriptions that a person buys from a farmer in exchange for a share of the produce that the farmer is growing. Generally, the subscriptions are for an eight to ten week period during fall and spring harvesting. The cost and the amount of produce received varies with the farmer, but in the two years that we have been buying CSAs, we have found a constant: we must find innovative ways to get all of the produce eaten before it is time to go back to the market to pick up more bags or boxes of collards, carrots, beets, turnips, and squash.
When you buy a CSA, you are providing cash flow for the farmer for a growing season. Payment is made at the beginning of the season, so you have no idea whether you will realize any return on this futures transaction. Both you and the farmer are hoping that your payment and the crops will not be eaten up by hornworms or flooded by Katrinas and Ritas. It is a gamble, but one I am willing to take in order to support people like David Klier, a young farmer who is trying to make a go of his Helping Hands Farm.
We met David last year when we first began our regular stops at the Hub City Farmers Market. He does not fit the stereotypical image of a farmer, not with his bearded twenty-something face and dreadlocks tied behind his head. I think those characteristics intrigued me and made me want to know more about him. As we briefly talked each week, I found him to be an extremely knowledgeable farmer, with a dogged desire to succeed at his vocation. It was not a difficult decision to buy a CSA from David. I had gotten to know him, and I knew his food.
Yesterday was the final pick-up for this season’s CSA. I can now evaluate whether or not I got my money’s worth with the deal that I struck: $250 for ten weeks of vegetables and ten bouquets of flowers. Without a doubt, we have had an abundance of fresh, organic produce that more than satisfied our food needs—the flowers were a bonus, along with the jar of pepper jelly David threw into the mix at the beginning of the harvest when he thought the bag of vegetables was a little light.
And if it had not turned out this way? If the crop had failed or if weather had not cooperated, would I still have no regrets about having supported a farmer who is trying to provide himself and a small community of people with healthy food? You know the answer to that.
