Living off the land

C.R. Roberts, The News Tribune, 253-597-8535 or c.r.roberts@mail.tribnet.com.

As with Pokemon, disposable cell phones and both a motorcycle

and an outfielder named Suzuki, the Japanese also have given us a blossoming new way to embrace the gifts of the farm.

It's called Community Supported Agriculture – or subscription farming – and it has slowly arrived over the past 15 years from Asia by way of Massachusetts. It's for "people who want a connection to their food supply," said Steven Garrett, county agent for Washington State University Extension.

It's a program whereby a customer buys from a farmer a share of a seasonal harvest. The customer likewise buys the risk. If the harvest is abundant, there will be lettuce and tomatoes aplenty. But if, say, the fennel fails, there will be no fennel.

"You pay a flat fee early in the season. You get a weekly box or bag of food during the growing season," Garrett said.

Less than $500, at one Pierce County CSA farm, will buy a summer's worth of fruits and vegetables. "What these 'farmers are doing – they're filling a niche that the big boys can't service," Garrett said.

It's a niche, he continued, that involves esthetics – a personal connection to food and farm. It's about "more flavorful, fresher food." It's about organic produce, things grown without the aid, of course, of pesticides.

There are "thousands of CSAs in the United States," he said, but less than a handful in Pierce County. Having studied and promoted the concept, Garrett has found that whereas 70 percent of larger-scale farmers are men, 70 percent of small-farm, organic farmers are women.

Whereas agribusiness farmers are in their mid-50s, those who farm smaller and organically are "much younger." "They're getting into it for philosophical and lifestyle reasons," he said.

Organic produce still small
As a percentage of overall food buying, organic produce is growing by 20 percent annually. Organic produce now represents 3 percent to 5 percent of all food purchased, he said. During World War II, 40 percent of the produce we ate came from local gardens, Garrett said. "Now, it's 1 percent." Then, we picked it. Now, we buy it.

The food Americans buy today comes from an average of 1,300 miles away, and it passes through the hands of five to seven middlemen. "What sells the CSA name is word-of-mouth," Garrett said. "There's no corporation, there's no advertising dollars. It's sort of a buzz."

A CSA farm can serve anywhere from 10 to 1,000 customers and generally spreads itself on no more than 10 acres. One Vashon Island operation – with three-fourths of an acre – showed an annual gross income of $45,000.

Models vary. A CSA farm might deliver its produce to a farmers' market where customers will pick up their baskets – or else the organized market might assemble its own baskets from the produce of several farmers. The classic CSA has customers visiting the farm every week to pick up their baskets, while some farms deliver to businesses and other central drop-off points.

Although not wealthy for their work, CSA providers can support their operations and their families. "A lot of these small farmers are able to make a living," Garrett said. "They're not looking for a trophy home in the suburbs, not driving a Lincoln Navigator."

At a recent conference in Port Townsend, where he expected to speak to fewer than 100 interested farmers, Garrett said, "390 people showed up." Around Puget Sound, people in King and Thurston counties have shown more interest in CSA than those in Pierce County, he said.

Where once stood rich farmland, the people of Pierce County lately have become very proficient in the growing of warehouses, roads, minimalls and subdivisions. Daily, between 1992 and 1997, Pierce County lost 4.3 acres of that farmland to other uses, Garrett said. The county lost one farm every two weeks.

"We're not drawing the types of farm operations that Thurston and King have, where they're getting a lot of start-ups," he said. It's not such an easy thing to convert an existing farm, which may focus on one or perhaps two crops, to a facility that plants by the dozens. "That's a big change," Garrett said.

He regularly speaks with farm owners about their crops, and he has tried to explain the virtues of CSA. "I try to talk farmers into this," he said. "One farmer told me, 'This is what I do, and I do it well. I'm not going to change.'" But farmers – conservative in Pierce County – may be underestimating the market.

"I think there's a huge opportunity. Farmers from outside the county have seen there's a market," Garrett said.

"It's just such a logical way to farm."