Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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is my theory. If someone takes an extra six leeks, it is not going to hurt me
financially, and it is good PR.”
He continues to describe the system. “So we just have it down. We do
that Friday: wash it, get everything prepared, and put it in a cooler. Then on
Saturday morning, we basically set up a big buffet line with heavy things on
one end and light, fluffy things at the other. Then everyone knows as you go
down the line you get one of this, two of this. We have people serving the
bags, so you walk down the line having stuff dropped in. At the end, either
my daughters or I put the bags in the right groups. And we do a weekly
newsletter, so we put a newsletter in the bag. We put a recipe in there and
farm news, and people really like that.” He is matter-of-fact. “So that is our
Saturday. We can bag up all two hundred bags; with seven or eight people
we can do it in an hour and a half. Once we do it a week or two, even if
we have new workers in for the season, they get in the groove like everyone
else. It is actually pretty easy.”
Although this CSA does not require members to work on the farm, Steve
is aware of the need for “PR,” as he puts it, or the need to communicate with
his members and maintain an open door. In fact, he says that the newsletter
is a family affair at his house. “My daughter and I sit down late in the week
and she does the typing because I type with one finger. They have grown
up with computers. My daughters are fifteen and sixteen.” They like to help
out with the newsletter, and his younger daughter helps him run irrigation.
As with most farm families in the United States, Steve's wife works off farm.
She is a nurse. Her job is absolutely necessary “for family living and health
insurance, those types of things. We don't have to use her salary to meet
farm bills. This last year was a pretty tough one, weatherwise. It takes the
pressure off. I don't have to worry about feeding the kids.”As for other farm
work: “It is my brother and myself; my father is still somewhat involved. He
will be seventy-three this summer. He isn't doing as much as a few years
ago, but that is expected.”
While Steve enjoys the CSA and its direct marketing profits, the timing
of the CSA is often at odds with other activities on the farm “because this is
not everything we do. . . . Between the wholesale vegetables and the barley
and corn and soybeans we have to plant in the spring, we don't try to hurry
up the CSA season that much. Our main wholesale business doesn't start
up until almost Labor Day.” The farm is divided up among the vegetables
and fieldcrops. “About 100 acres in mixed vegetables. Corn usually 100 to
120 and about the same for soybeans. Barley and other small grains would
be 100 and the rest will be either pasture or hay fields or fallow.” Their
wholesale vegetable business is still in place, but the CSA has encouraged
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