March 15, 2004
Home grown | More Mainer farmers are turning to the model community-supported agriculture-CSA, for short- to get their products to customers
By Michaela Cavallaro
Like many Mainers, John Bliss and Stacy Brenner have spent the winter poring over seed catalogs, pondering which varieties of tomatoes to plant and tracking down sources for organic pullets. They've staked out the borders of a hoop house and planned the location of a kitchen garden behind their cozy 18th-century farmhouse in Cape Elizabeth.
But Bliss and Brenner have bigger plans than simply supplying themselves and their eight-year-old, Emma, with fresh produce and poultry.
This summer, their new enterprise, Turkey Hill Farm, will provide organic vegetables and eggs to area residents via the community-supported agriculture model. An increasingly popular business model for farmers, CSAs work on a subscription basis, whereby consumers pay in advance ˆ purchasing what's known as a share ˆ for a season's worth of vegetables. Farmers get their money in the winter and spring, when they need it the most to cover maintenance and seed purchases, and, once summer arrives, consumers get fresh local produce, often at a good value compared to grocery store prices. "Marketing is at least half the farmer's job," explains Bliss. "Certainly 50% of your energy and time is spent getting the stuff off the farm. The idea with CSAs is to cut that down, and to do a lot of it in the winter, when I have the time."
The CSA concept is a relatively new one, having begun in the United States in 1986, when a Massachusetts farmer brought the idea from Japan. But it's picked up steam in the last several years, especially in New England and California; there are now about 1,200 CSAs nationwide, according to the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Penn. In Maine, the number of CSAs is "steadily increasing," according to Deanne Herman, marketing manager for the state Department of Agriculture. Herman's database contains 56 farms that offer some variation on a CSA., compared to the 23 CSA farms counted in 2002. The most recent agricultural census, compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistic Service, reported that the number of farms less than 10 acres in Maine increased from 773 in 1997 to 928 in 2002, a 21% increase. While not a perfect measure of CSA growth ˆ most CSAs are small, but not all small farms are CSAs ˆ the numbers are indicative of the growth in entrepreneurial agriculture ventures.
In addition to spreading risk across a farm's customer base ˆ if, for example, a farm's broccoli crop is devoured by woodchucks, as occurred at Wolf Pine Farm in Alfred last year, shareholders simply don't receive the vegetable in their weekly distributions ˆ CSAs tend to be philosophically motivated ventures. Many are driven by farmers' desire to replace the grip of agribusiness on the consumer with a commitment to local agriculture and seasonal eating. "Ultimately it's not about making money," says Brenner of Turkey Hill Farm. "It's about growing good food, building community. It's a labor of love for sure ˆ it's definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme."
For other farmers, though, a CSA is simply another way of diversifying their business. CSAs "are where the innovators, the entrepreneurs are right now ˆ the local, unique personalities," says Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, Calif. "There's significant risk, but the rewards are generally more than just financial ˆ there's a spiritual component, a human level, a community component that is hard to get in agriculture."
Addressing the needs of shareholders
In its most traditional form, a CSA solicits members or shareholders during the fall and winter. Shareholders make their payments ˆ generally $400-$550 for a full share, which typically provides vegetables for a family of four for at least 20 weeks ˆ by March or April.
Then, in mid- to late June, when enough vegetables are ripe to begin distribution, consumers begin making weekly trips to the farm, where they pick up a set "share" of that week's produce. (See "My veggies, myself," page 13.) It's essentially a grocery list in reverse; rather than selecting which vegetables you'd like to buy, the farmer determines which ones, and how many, you're taking home. "It changes your lifestyle a little bit, and changes how you cook," says Jill Agnew, who started Maine's first CSA in 1989 at her Willow Pond Farm in Sabattus.
That's the model that both Turkey Hill Farm and Crystal Spring Community Farm, a new CSA in Brunswick, are using. While Turkey Hill is starting small, with 15-20 shares this year, all of which are already reserved, Seth Kroeck of Crystal Spring plans to offer 75 shares; as of early March, he had 36 shares spoken for. Both Bliss and Kroeck hope the CSA operation will make up the bulk of their business, though both plan to make retail sales at farmers' markets, too. "We're built around providing as much diversity [in produce] as possible to the members, as opposed to really growing a lot of volume of high-value crops for farmers' market," says Kroeck, who has spent the last several years working on large CSAs in the Northeast. "In our first-year business plan, [revenue is] roughly 50%-60% from the CSA, and the rest from the farmers' market."
Growth will come from increasing the number of shareholders, or from selling additional products to existing shareholders. Increasingly, for example, CSA farms are offering eggs, flowers, meat and cheese to their shareholders. At Turkey Hill, Bliss, who managed the CSA at Sunrise Acres in Cumberland last year, set share prices low ˆ $315 ˆ because of his uncertainty about how much produce he'll end up distributing. (The 25-acre property, which Bliss is leasing in an innovative deal that includes an agricultural easement, hasn't been farmed actively for more than 50 years, leaving Bliss and Brennan with, at minimum, lots of rocks to pull out of the fields before they can be planted. They'll plant just one acre this year, and prepare another for planting in the future.) Still, by the end of the season, Bliss hopes CSA members will have spent more like $600 each at the farm.
At Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Lisa Turner's CSA operation makes up only 10%-15% of her total revenue, but it's an important segment. Turner, who started her CSA eight years ago, is one of the few ˆ if not the only ˆ CSA farmers in the state who delivers each weekly share to her customers. It started out as a practical matter ˆ "I have the three kids, and the youngest was three that year, so I could never guarantee that I could have everything done by 2 p.m. so people could pick it up," she says, "but I knew I could get it done eventually, and take it to people's houses" ˆ but has evolved into an unusually close connection with her community, since she only delivers within Freeport.
That connection came in handy last fall, when her barn was demolished by fire. "I got notes, I got checks, some of them even helped rebuild," she says of her CSA customers. "Certainly I have a warped view because of who I hang out with" ˆ Turner is president of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association ˆ "but I definitely see that people are more interested in a local economy, a local view ˆ and they're aware that if they give the money to a farm they're preserving landscape, getting a fresher product with more nutrients, and they're helping a neighbor who will then come in and spend money with them."
Diversity, diversity
For other farmers, the traditional CSA model is too restrictive. An increasing number of farms are offering a modified CSA, in which members pre-pay a set amount at the beginning of the season, then essentially have a tab at the farm's table at a local farmers' market, or at its farmstand. Jan Goranson has been running a CSA using this model at Goranson Farm in Dresden since the early 1990s, and she's found that her customers appreciate it. "In our area, we have people who just come for summer, people who leave for the summer, people who go on vacation for part of the summer ˆ we've surveyed them and they love having it the way that it is," she says. "I didn't want to be making decisions about whether they would want shelled peas over sugarsnap peas. Our farmstand is open seven days a week, so they have the flexibility to come any day that works for their schedule."
The CSA is just one of a multitude of revenue streams for Goranson, who also wholesales produce to restaurants and natural food stores, retails at three farmers' markets and her farmstand and kicks off the season with making maple syrup. In addition, Goranson supplies produce for 125 low income senior citizens via Senior Farm Share, a federal program that in Maine operates on a CSA model. With so many ways of reaching her customers, Goranson still values the relationships she develops with her CSA members. "I really like the idea of kind of feeling more connected to the community, feeling like our farm is more than just a business in the community, that we really are providing something really basic and substantial," she says.
In order for those connections to occur, though, the customer base has to exist. Many of the state's most successful CSAs are located in southern and midcoast Maine, where the population base exists to support them. "Right now, the biggest CSA market is a middle class market, people who have enough money to plunk down $200-$400 before they get any vegetables at all," says Kroeck of Crystal Spring Farm.
In Farmington, Ross Adams has struggled to get a CSA going at his farm, Adams Family Organics. Using the same model as Goranson, who has 200 summer CSA members, Adams has just 10 members, who get credit for 10% more than they pre-pay at his farmstand. "It's something I haven't pushed real hard," he says of the CSA, which he runs in addition to his farmstand, wholesale effort and farmers' market operation. "I really like them, but what I don't like about the CSA is you've almost got to track some [customers] down to get them to use up [their shares]."
Still, even with several distribution channels and an expanding product mix ˆ he's recently started offering butter, milk and beef from his own cows ˆ Adams has to work as a carpenter in order to earn enough to support his family. "People just don't get the fact of buying local," he says, adding that the Farmington farmers' market doesn't get as much traffic as he'd like, perhaps in part because more people in western Maine have their own gardens.
Still, if national trends are any indication, Adams is on the right track with his practice of diversifying both his product mix and his distribution channels. Scowcroft of the Organic Farming Research Foundation notes that increasing numbers of farms are adding a CSA operation to their existing wholesale and retail efforts. "If they get the idea to add 30 families, and then add organic Christmas trees ˆ which is a booming little area ˆ they can spread [their income out] from June or July to the first week of December," he says.
"If they're a meat producer, you can get your turkey grown for youˆ That kind of business savvy is emerging from some of the larger CSAs ˆ $50,000-$250,000 operations. Just think diversity, diversity."
But Bliss and Brenner have bigger plans than simply supplying themselves and their eight-year-old, Emma, with fresh produce and poultry.
This summer, their new enterprise, Turkey Hill Farm, will provide organic vegetables and eggs to area residents via the community-supported agriculture model. An increasingly popular business model for farmers, CSAs work on a subscription basis, whereby consumers pay in advance ˆ purchasing what's known as a share ˆ for a season's worth of vegetables. Farmers get their money in the winter and spring, when they need it the most to cover maintenance and seed purchases, and, once summer arrives, consumers get fresh local produce, often at a good value compared to grocery store prices. "Marketing is at least half the farmer's job," explains Bliss. "Certainly 50% of your energy and time is spent getting the stuff off the farm. The idea with CSAs is to cut that down, and to do a lot of it in the winter, when I have the time."
The CSA concept is a relatively new one, having begun in the United States in 1986, when a Massachusetts farmer brought the idea from Japan. But it's picked up steam in the last several years, especially in New England and California; there are now about 1,200 CSAs nationwide, according to the Robyn Van En Center for CSA Resources at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Penn. In Maine, the number of CSAs is "steadily increasing," according to Deanne Herman, marketing manager for the state Department of Agriculture. Herman's database contains 56 farms that offer some variation on a CSA., compared to the 23 CSA farms counted in 2002. The most recent agricultural census, compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistic Service, reported that the number of farms less than 10 acres in Maine increased from 773 in 1997 to 928 in 2002, a 21% increase. While not a perfect measure of CSA growth ˆ most CSAs are small, but not all small farms are CSAs ˆ the numbers are indicative of the growth in entrepreneurial agriculture ventures.
In addition to spreading risk across a farm's customer base ˆ if, for example, a farm's broccoli crop is devoured by woodchucks, as occurred at Wolf Pine Farm in Alfred last year, shareholders simply don't receive the vegetable in their weekly distributions ˆ CSAs tend to be philosophically motivated ventures. Many are driven by farmers' desire to replace the grip of agribusiness on the consumer with a commitment to local agriculture and seasonal eating. "Ultimately it's not about making money," says Brenner of Turkey Hill Farm. "It's about growing good food, building community. It's a labor of love for sure ˆ it's definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme."
For other farmers, though, a CSA is simply another way of diversifying their business. CSAs "are where the innovators, the entrepreneurs are right now ˆ the local, unique personalities," says Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation in Santa Cruz, Calif. "There's significant risk, but the rewards are generally more than just financial ˆ there's a spiritual component, a human level, a community component that is hard to get in agriculture."
Addressing the needs of shareholders
In its most traditional form, a CSA solicits members or shareholders during the fall and winter. Shareholders make their payments ˆ generally $400-$550 for a full share, which typically provides vegetables for a family of four for at least 20 weeks ˆ by March or April.
Then, in mid- to late June, when enough vegetables are ripe to begin distribution, consumers begin making weekly trips to the farm, where they pick up a set "share" of that week's produce. (See "My veggies, myself," page 13.) It's essentially a grocery list in reverse; rather than selecting which vegetables you'd like to buy, the farmer determines which ones, and how many, you're taking home. "It changes your lifestyle a little bit, and changes how you cook," says Jill Agnew, who started Maine's first CSA in 1989 at her Willow Pond Farm in Sabattus.
That's the model that both Turkey Hill Farm and Crystal Spring Community Farm, a new CSA in Brunswick, are using. While Turkey Hill is starting small, with 15-20 shares this year, all of which are already reserved, Seth Kroeck of Crystal Spring plans to offer 75 shares; as of early March, he had 36 shares spoken for. Both Bliss and Kroeck hope the CSA operation will make up the bulk of their business, though both plan to make retail sales at farmers' markets, too. "We're built around providing as much diversity [in produce] as possible to the members, as opposed to really growing a lot of volume of high-value crops for farmers' market," says Kroeck, who has spent the last several years working on large CSAs in the Northeast. "In our first-year business plan, [revenue is] roughly 50%-60% from the CSA, and the rest from the farmers' market."
Growth will come from increasing the number of shareholders, or from selling additional products to existing shareholders. Increasingly, for example, CSA farms are offering eggs, flowers, meat and cheese to their shareholders. At Turkey Hill, Bliss, who managed the CSA at Sunrise Acres in Cumberland last year, set share prices low ˆ $315 ˆ because of his uncertainty about how much produce he'll end up distributing. (The 25-acre property, which Bliss is leasing in an innovative deal that includes an agricultural easement, hasn't been farmed actively for more than 50 years, leaving Bliss and Brennan with, at minimum, lots of rocks to pull out of the fields before they can be planted. They'll plant just one acre this year, and prepare another for planting in the future.) Still, by the end of the season, Bliss hopes CSA members will have spent more like $600 each at the farm.
At Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Lisa Turner's CSA operation makes up only 10%-15% of her total revenue, but it's an important segment. Turner, who started her CSA eight years ago, is one of the few ˆ if not the only ˆ CSA farmers in the state who delivers each weekly share to her customers. It started out as a practical matter ˆ "I have the three kids, and the youngest was three that year, so I could never guarantee that I could have everything done by 2 p.m. so people could pick it up," she says, "but I knew I could get it done eventually, and take it to people's houses" ˆ but has evolved into an unusually close connection with her community, since she only delivers within Freeport.
That connection came in handy last fall, when her barn was demolished by fire. "I got notes, I got checks, some of them even helped rebuild," she says of her CSA customers. "Certainly I have a warped view because of who I hang out with" ˆ Turner is president of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association ˆ "but I definitely see that people are more interested in a local economy, a local view ˆ and they're aware that if they give the money to a farm they're preserving landscape, getting a fresher product with more nutrients, and they're helping a neighbor who will then come in and spend money with them."
Diversity, diversity
For other farmers, the traditional CSA model is too restrictive. An increasing number of farms are offering a modified CSA, in which members pre-pay a set amount at the beginning of the season, then essentially have a tab at the farm's table at a local farmers' market, or at its farmstand. Jan Goranson has been running a CSA using this model at Goranson Farm in Dresden since the early 1990s, and she's found that her customers appreciate it. "In our area, we have people who just come for summer, people who leave for the summer, people who go on vacation for part of the summer ˆ we've surveyed them and they love having it the way that it is," she says. "I didn't want to be making decisions about whether they would want shelled peas over sugarsnap peas. Our farmstand is open seven days a week, so they have the flexibility to come any day that works for their schedule."
The CSA is just one of a multitude of revenue streams for Goranson, who also wholesales produce to restaurants and natural food stores, retails at three farmers' markets and her farmstand and kicks off the season with making maple syrup. In addition, Goranson supplies produce for 125 low income senior citizens via Senior Farm Share, a federal program that in Maine operates on a CSA model. With so many ways of reaching her customers, Goranson still values the relationships she develops with her CSA members. "I really like the idea of kind of feeling more connected to the community, feeling like our farm is more than just a business in the community, that we really are providing something really basic and substantial," she says.
In order for those connections to occur, though, the customer base has to exist. Many of the state's most successful CSAs are located in southern and midcoast Maine, where the population base exists to support them. "Right now, the biggest CSA market is a middle class market, people who have enough money to plunk down $200-$400 before they get any vegetables at all," says Kroeck of Crystal Spring Farm.
In Farmington, Ross Adams has struggled to get a CSA going at his farm, Adams Family Organics. Using the same model as Goranson, who has 200 summer CSA members, Adams has just 10 members, who get credit for 10% more than they pre-pay at his farmstand. "It's something I haven't pushed real hard," he says of the CSA, which he runs in addition to his farmstand, wholesale effort and farmers' market operation. "I really like them, but what I don't like about the CSA is you've almost got to track some [customers] down to get them to use up [their shares]."
Still, even with several distribution channels and an expanding product mix ˆ he's recently started offering butter, milk and beef from his own cows ˆ Adams has to work as a carpenter in order to earn enough to support his family. "People just don't get the fact of buying local," he says, adding that the Farmington farmers' market doesn't get as much traffic as he'd like, perhaps in part because more people in western Maine have their own gardens.
Still, if national trends are any indication, Adams is on the right track with his practice of diversifying both his product mix and his distribution channels. Scowcroft of the Organic Farming Research Foundation notes that increasing numbers of farms are adding a CSA operation to their existing wholesale and retail efforts. "If they get the idea to add 30 families, and then add organic Christmas trees ˆ which is a booming little area ˆ they can spread [their income out] from June or July to the first week of December," he says.
"If they're a meat producer, you can get your turkey grown for youˆ That kind of business savvy is emerging from some of the larger CSAs ˆ $50,000-$250,000 operations. Just think diversity, diversity."
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