Re: ???
Dear Teresa, I seem to recall that you are in the north of England. you are welcome up here in Aberdeen any time, altho I cannot guarentee that I am doing anything 'properly'. We use the Mausdorfer starter in our underground liquid manure tanks, which then get spread on the fields as slurry. Now I am doing '500' spraying to enhance the forces of crystallisation currently active in the earth. Plus we prep all our heaps with the compost preps. 502-508. I also use homeopathy on the dairy cows/youngstock for such things as pneumonia prevention, keeping the cell count down, keeping feet healthy, aand at present I am having problems getting cows back in calf, so I am trying something to help that also. All the homeo. stuff comes from Ainsworths. I also have a home made field broadcaster, but I am too insensitive to work out whether it is working or not !! cheers, out-of-hibernationGideon. - Original Message - From: Teresa Seed [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 9:11 PM Subject: ??? Dear group I'm going to have to put a title on this at the end, if at all. Perhaps I should limit it to just one theme - which will be, for now, where is BD in the UK at? Are there any British BDers who are experimenting with Steiner's preps, be it with homoeopathy, radionics or whatever? It would be really good to have someone close enough to compare notes with and actually go and see successful BD in practice. I've dipped my toes in to the extent of spraying the preps once a couple of months ago and I intend using them quite frequently. How often is enough? What are the signs that I should be looking for that they are having an effect? I got my preps from Paul van Midden in Scotland. He sells, as well as 500 to 508, something called the Mausdorfer Compost Starter/Birch Pit Concentrate. 'This (I quote from the brochure) is developed by Dr Christian von Wistinghausen from the international biodynamic preparation centre in Mausdorf, Germany. It is based on the concept of the birch pit concentrate, has added to it basalt meal, egg shells and herbs and comes in dried form to conserve its effectiveness. The Mausdorfer compost starter is a means of applying the compost preparations in sheet composting (ie incorporating fresh organic material in the top soil like ploughing in a grass ley or green manure) or continuous composting situations where fresh material is constantly added (ie in cattle sheds or domestic compost heaps). This starter can be used in addition to the regular use of the compost preparations and is useful in situations where it is difficult to use the compost preparations in the normal manner.' Has anyone heard of this or used it? It sounds like a useful addition. Teresa _ MSN Messenger - fast, easy and FREE! http://messenger.msn.co.uk
Re: csa names
Allan, I guess you would know what works best for your local customers, I have trouble keeping up with you.have you moved again ? Where are you now ? g. - Original Message - From: Allan Balliett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 2:16 PM Subject: Re: csa names sounds like your local supermarket ! (I guess this should read convenience store in Yankese.) Actually, Gideon, 'local' is what separates it from 'supermarket.' The phrase is one that has been picked like 'authentic food' as a way of indicating that if you buy Fresh (picked this morning) and Local (within 100 miles), you've pretty much moved to supporting small, value-driven farms. My gut feeling, though, is similar to your, or I would have embraced this one. The blockage here is the difficulty with the word CSA Let's face it, if this were 'really' CSA, there w.b. a core group pulling this together while I keep working on the artichoke and the ginger management plans. But, CSA has its meaning to people who want fresh and locally grown food. Good to hear from you, my man. I wish you'd find time to write more. -Allan
: re CSA name
Food glorious Food
Re: Lungworm update /AGRESSIVE THERAPY
Title: Re: Lungworm update /AGRESSIVE THERAPY DEAR DIANA The homeopathic remedy you gave is of course COPPER. This is logical and can be very effective. (read about it in a homeopathic Materia Medica). Please explain to us what you mean by diagnosis by Ian Buckingham symptoms. Animals that have one type of parasite usually have many types coexisting. The door was left open. Parasite infestation, like infection, is not random luck, it is an IMMUNE DEFICIENCY. The source of this deficiency is almost always an environmental pollution, coupled with a nutritional or genetic weaknesses. Parasites use their ANTENNAE to detect weak immune systems. They can pick up the signal of a food buffet at 1/2 a mile away. The parasite is just an opportunist letting you know something else is wrong. You will probably need to continue to medicate this patient with OTHER remedies to treat the SECONDARY symptoms such as the prostration and dyspnea. Sounds like you now have pneumonia present. All hope is that you are getting to the deepest level of source of the symptoms and that you are acting in time. You should make all efforts to keep supportive and nursing care at full strength during this critical period. Consider colostrum, immune tonics, herbs, nutriceuticals and vitamins via drench, fluids, caring and warmth. For the next step in homeopathy, I highly recommend HOMEOPATHY FOR THE HERD by our own Edgar Sheaffer and available from Acres, USA on-line bookstore. He teaches homeopathy that is doable by all but not watered-down and cheapened. You will also want to pick up a homeopathic kit of remedies. While you are at it, have Acres send you THE HERBAL GUIDE FOR FARM AND STABLE by Juliette de Bairacli Levy. This magnificent and inspired book will give you herbal remedies to combat just about any onslaught of parasites or diseases. The folk wisdom here is deep and I have never seen anything else like it. What you are learning in this case will go far beyond this individual patient and, if you follow it through, it will serve you well for a lifetime. Best wishes, WGW
FW: [globalnews] Is Fat the Next Tobacco? For Big Food, thesupersizing of America is becoming a big headache.
Title: FW: [globalnews] Is Fat the Next Tobacco? For Big Food, the supersizing of America is becoming a big headache. FAT Is Fat the Next Tobacco? For Big Food, the supersizing of America is becoming a big headache. FORTUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2003 By Roger Parloff On August 3, 2000, the parody newspaper The Onion ran a joke article under the headline Hershey's Ordered to Pay Obese Americans $135 Billion. The hypothesized class-action lawsuit said that Hershey knowingly and willfully marketed to children rich, fatty candy bars containing chocolate and other ingredients of negligible nutritional value, while spiking them with peanuts, crisped rice, and caramel to increase consumer appeal. Some joke. Last summer New York City attorney Sam Hirsch filed a strikingly similar suit--against McDonald's--on behalf of a class of obese and overweight children. He alleged that the fast-food chain negligently, recklessly, carelessly and/or intentionally markets to children food products that are high in fat, salt, sugar, and cholesterol while failing to warn of those ingredients' links to obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, elevated cholesterol intake, related cancers, and other conditions. News of the lawsuit drew hoots of derision. But food industry executives aren't laughing--or shouldn't be. No matter what happens with Hirsch's suit, he has tapped into something very big. (Editor's note: After this story went to press, a federal judge dismissed the suit, but granted permission to refile, which Hirsch says he will do.) Seasoned lawyers from both sides of past mass-tort disputes agree that the years ahead hold serious tobacco-like litigation challenges for the food industry--challenges that extend beyond fast foods to snack foods, soft drinks, packaged foods, and dietary supplements. The precedents, the ammo, the missiles are already there and waiting in a silo marked 'tobacco,' says Victor Schwartz, general counsel of the American Tort Reform Association. Junk food may not be addictive in the same way that tobacco is. But weight, once gained, is notoriously hard to lose, and childhood weight patterns strongly predict adult ones. Rates of overweight among small children--to whom junk-food companies aggressively market their products--have doubled since 1980; rates among adolescents have tripled. (See the following story for more on the fat epidemic.) In 1999 physicians began reporting an alarming rise in children of obesity-linked type 2 diabetes. Once an obese youngster develops diabetes, he or she will never get rid of it. That's a lot more irreversible than a smoking addiction. Though many people recoil at the idea of obesity suits--eating habits are a matter of personal responsibility, they protest--the tobacco precedents show that such qualms can be overcome. Yes, most people know that eating a Big Mac isn't the same as eating a spinach salad, but most people knew that smoking was bad for them too. And yes, diet is only one risk factor out of many that contribute to obesity, but smoking is just one risk factor for diseases for which the tobacco companies were forced to fork over reimbursement to Medicaid. (The industry's share of the blame was statistically estimated and then divvied up among companies by market share.) The tobacco companies eventually agreed to pay $246 billion to the states, and juries are now ordering them to pay individual smokers eight-digit verdicts too. By the Surgeon General's estimate, public-health costs attributable to overweight and obesity now come to about $117 billion a year--fast approaching the $140 billion stemming from smoking. Suing Big Food offers allures to contingency-fee lawyers that rival those of Big Tobacco, and the implications of that are pretty easy to foresee. While the food industry is not apt to be socked with anything like the penalties that hit tobacco, companies will face consumer-protection suits that might cost them many tens of millions of dollars and force them to significantly change marketing practices. The triggering event occurred in December 2001. That's when the Surgeon General, observing that about 300,000 deaths per year are now associated with overweight and obesity, warned that those conditions might soon cause as much preventable disease and death as smoking. The report prompted journalists to call John Banzhaf III, an antismoking activist and a law professor at George Washington University School of Law, to see whether tobacco-style litigation might be in the offing. I said, 'Well, no, there are important differences,' Banzhaf recalls. But even as he talked, he began to change his mind. Another key academic strategist in the tobacco wars, Northeastern University law professor Richard Daynard, was soon drawn into the fray. At a conference last April to discuss Marion Nestle's new book, Food Politics, he was asked to talk about possible obesity-related litigation. (Nestle, who
FW: [globalnews] Your Honor, We Call Our Next Witness:McFrankenstein
Title: FW: [globalnews] Your Honor, We Call Our Next Witness: McFrankenstein The New York Times January 26, 2003 Your Honor, We Call Our Next Witness: McFrankenstein By BENJAMIN WEISER The national psychodrama over obesity and fast food took an intriguing turn last week when a federal judge in Manhattan threw out a lawsuit that accused the McDonald's Corporation of deceiving its consumers about the high levels of fat, sugar, salt and cholesterol in its products. The 64-page ruling was notable not just for what McDonald's called its common sense approach, but for its suggestion that an alternate legal strategy might allow the plaintiffs to try again. The suit, which sought class-action status on behalf of the millions of children and teenagers who regularly eat at McDonald's, sought to hold the chain liable for obesity and other illnesses in young people. In dismissing the suit, the judge, Robert W. Sweet of Federal District Court, said there was no evidence McDonald's had concealed information about the ingredients of its products. He also said it was widely known that fast food, and McDonald's products in particular, contained potentially harmful ingredients. But Judge Sweet also held up the specter that the company had created some McFrankenstein foods that are altered during processing. He said if the plaintiffs could prove that the result was an added health hazard beyond the comprehension of the average consumer, they might have a better chance of pursuing their case. Excerpts from the ruling follow. Judge Sweet began by citing the case's unique and challenging issues. Questions of personal responsibility, common knowledge and public health are presented. . . . The issue of determining the breadth of personal responsibility underlies much of the law: where should the line be drawn between an individual's own responsibility to take care of herself, and society's responsibility to ensure that others shield her? . . . This opinion is guided by the principle that legal consequences should not attach to the consumption of hamburgers and other fast food fare unless consumers are unaware of the dangers of eating such food. . . . If consumers know (or reasonably should know) the potential ill health effects of eating at McDonald's, they cannot blame McDonald's if they, nonetheless, choose to satiate their appetite with a surfeit of supersized McDonald's products. On the other hand, consumers cannot be expected to protect against a danger that was solely within McDonald's knowledge. The judge noted two advertising campaigns cited by the plaintiffs that encourage people to eat daily at McDonald's (McChicken Everyday!) and (Big N' Tasty Everyday), and to a statement on the company's Web site that McDonald's can be part of any balanced diet and lifestyle. The advertisements encouraging persons to eat at McDonald's everyday! do not include any indication that doing so is part of a well-balanced diet, and the plaintiffs fail to cite any advertisement where McDonald's asserts that its products may be eaten for every meal of every day without any ill consequences. Merely encouraging consumers to eat its products everyday is mere puffery, at most, in the absence of a claim that to do so will result in a specific effect on health. For the plaintiffs to make a claim, Judge Sweet said, they would need to allege either that the attributes of McDonald's products are so extraordinarily unhealthy that they are outside the reasonable contemplation of the consuming public or that the products are so extraordinarily unhealthy as to be dangerous in their intended use. On both counts, he said, the complaint fell short. It is well-known that fast food in general, and McDonald's products in particular, contain high levels of cholesterol, fat, salt and sugar, and that such attributes are bad for one. . . . If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald's products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain (and its concomitant problems) because of the high levels of cholesterol, fat, salt and sugar, it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses. Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald's. (Except, perhaps, parents of small children who desire McDonald's food, toy promotions or playgrounds and demand their parents' accompaniment.) Even more pertinent, nobody is forced to supersize their meal or choose less healthy options on the menu. As long as a consumer exercises free choice with appropriate knowledge, liability for negligence will not attach to a manufacturer. The plaintiffs might have better luck, Judge Sweet suggested, if they amended their complaint to follow up on arguments they made but didn't fully develop in their initial action: The plaintiffs attempt to show that over-consumption of McDonald's is different in kind from, for instance, over-consumption of alcoholic beverages or butter because the processing of McDonald's food has
FW: [globalnews] Western US Drought Likely To Worsen Over Next 25Year Cycle
Title: FW: [globalnews] Western US Drought Likely To Worsen Over Next 25 Year Cycle The Economist The western drought A growing thirst Jan 23rd 2003 | SHERIDAN, WYOMING >From The Economist print edition Cities can cope better than rural places, but both need better ideas IN 2002, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming had the driest or near-driest summer since meteorologists began taking notes more than a century ago. By October, Los Angeles had had only 1.61 inches of rain. November and December delivered five more inches, but the total was far below the average of 15 inches a year. The Colorado river ran at 14% of its normal flow, a 100-year low. And many think there is worse to come. Drought is no stranger to the west, but each visit is more punishing. Previously reliable water-sources, such as aquifers, are shrinking; populations are growing; American Indian water rights are more strictly enforced; endangered species are more fiercely protected. In previous droughts, cities and irrigators simply built more dams, dug deeper wells, sliced wider canals and diverted streams. Few such options are available today. Los Angeles, Tucson, Phoenix and Las Vegas own some of the world's largest water-delivery systems. They take drought in their stride, juggling supply lines, enforcing conservation and punishing water-hogs and scofflaws. Phoenix, which is suffering its worst dry spell since 1904, hopes to get by with a mandatory 5% reduction in water use (less sprinkling of golf courses, more mending of leaks) and a shift in supply from the Salt River Project, which is reducing water deliveries to the city by a third, to the Central Arizona Project. The scene in South Dakota Drought is much more troubling in the non-urban west. Winter Livestock Sales of La Junta, Colorado, which usually sells 200,000 cattle a year, sold 260,000 in 2002, absolutely due to drought. Ranches are closing down at a much higher rate than usual. Non-farming communities suffer too. Even wide-open New Mexico has counties that have grown by over 30% during the past decade; and when new people settle in remote places, drought hits them harder. How hard, though? A 2000 study by Henri Grissino-Mayer, a scientist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, suggests that the past two centuries have in fact been the wettest period of the past 1,500 years in New Mexico. The past 20 years have been the wettest of all. Mr Grissino-Mayer based his findings on tree-rings from 248 Douglas firs and ponderosa pines from west-central New Mexico, which clearly record drought or plenty. Yet the past has proved a poor guide to future weather patterns in the west. At the time of the 1922 Colorado river compact, hydrologists extrapolated future water flows from 18 very wet years. They told politicians that the river was certain to average 17.5m acre-feet a year; it has averaged 11.7m acre-feet, and the west squabbles constantly over the difference. If we think the rainfall we got in New Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s was normal, we're in for a rude awakening, says Charlie Liles of the National Weather Service. Climatologists are worried, too, by a recent northward shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ( PDO ), a pattern of warmer or colder weather on a 25-year cycle. This new phase, which is causing Seattle's rain to fall over Alaska, means even more dry years for the rural west, according to Bill Patzert, an oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The rain of the immediate future, he says, will largely fall in the wrong places: on central Los Angeles, for example, rather than over the Sierra Nevadas and the Colorado river watershed, which send water to the rest of the region. The inland west knows that it must adjust to dry times rather than look for more water. Colorado thinks it has at least one answer. Researchers at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado are teaming up to create a project called DroughtLab. This will analyse rainfall patterns, track the way water managers and federal range managers are responding to the drought, and keep a watch on both erosion and forest fires. Better data will certainly help; but in the end, of course, there is no substitute for more rain. Copyright 2003 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved. -- Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. - Kahlil Gibran
FW: [globalnews] Chef Bobo Brings Healthy Diet to NY School: KidsThrow Up Now When Eating Fast Foods
Title: FW: [globalnews] Chef Bobo Brings Healthy Diet to NY School: Kids Throw Up Now When Eating Fast Foods FAT We've Got to Stop Eating Like This If food companies are to grow, so must we, it seems. What would transform our diet on a national scale? FORTUNE Tuesday, January 21, 2003 By Timothy K. Smith And how is the food at the Calhoun School in Manhattan this year, now that Chef Bobo is in charge? It's awesome, says a student diner. The hot dogs don't bounce. That's an admirably succinct review, and no doubt accurate, but it doesn't quite capture the big picture. When Calhoun's administrators decided last year to drop their commercial catering service, they heard about a man called Chef Bobo, a charismatic teacher at the French Culinary Institute with an ambition to work with children. Calhoun's headmaster hesitated--Having a clown as a chef was not my idea of trouble-free administration, he says--but he hired Chef Bobo and several students from the institute. Since this school year began, the team has been systematically reeducating the palates of more than 500 kids in grades two through 12. What the chefs are doing is simple--they're making nice lunches from scratch--but it's also profound: an object lesson in how to reverse the metabolic disaster of the modern American diet. On a recent Friday the scene in Chef Bobo's lunchroom is the kind of thing school cafeterias probably dream about at night. On the menu are vegetable soup, green beans with shallot butter, potato salad with scallions, and baked salmon with citrus butter. Dessert is a tiny piece of superb chocolate cake. The students are eating it up, as Marion Nestle, the well-known nutritionist, can attest--she's making a cameo appearance over in a corner rooting through a trash bin, confirming that hardly anything is going to waste. As this is the last day of school before Christmas break, Chef Bobo is receiving handmade cards from grateful students with variations on the theme We love your food! This is completely different from what they had before, says the chef, a New Orleans native with a big smile and a gold earring. The first two months I would not allow any ketchup or mayonnaise in the lunchroom. Students constantly asked for it, but I would say, 'Sorry, I don't believe in ketchup.' Ketchup has more sugar than ice cream. I wanted them to taste what food really tastes like. Now they don't ask for it anymore. In Chef Bobo's kitchen, vegetable stock is made every morning. Bread and muffins are freshly baked. Each day the kids are fed a soup, an animal entree, a vegetable, a starch, and fresh fruit. Ninety percent of what's served is vegetarian, organic whenever possible. At the start of the school year the students were consuming one case of vegetables a day. Now that's up to four cases, and a fifth may be needed. The philosophy that comes out of the kitchen is to eat wonderful things moderately, says Steve Nelson, the headmaster. There have been other benefits. Teenage girls are eating the food because they know it won't make them fat. Teachers are mingling with students at lunch instead of going out. The kids tell me that when they go to McDonald's or Burger King now, they get sick to their stomach. That's one of my goals, Chef Bobo says. Adds Nelson: We have a cooking club now, so we have high school students who, instead of going to a rave party downtown and consuming large quantities of ecstasy, are having a dinner party and consuming large quantities of herb-crusted cod. As the Calhoun experience shows, it's easy as pie to change the way people eat. Oh, sure, you might say, but this is a Manhattan private school that can afford an elitist extravagance, right? Chef Bobo is even a minor local celebrity: The New Yorker recently ran a little profile of him, noting that he also works as Derek Jeter's personal chef during the baseball season. But surprise: Calhoun's food costs per child are almost identical to what they were before. The school pays more for ingredients, but servings are smaller, little goes to waste, and because the chefs are employees, there's no catering-company overhead. The broader point is that human diets are eminently changeable; they change all the time, and there is nothing inexorable about the national drift toward bloat. There is also nothing immutable about the swill that people buy in supermarkets and restaurants. A generation ago it was almost impossible to get a good cup of coffee in America. Yuppies fixed that. Beer too. What will it take to transform our diet on a national scale? The problem is huge and depressingly simple: The U.S. food industry provides about 3,900 calories per person per day (the figure is for 2000, the latest available). Allowing for waste and losses in cooking, the USDA estimates that the average American consumes roughly 2,750 calories per day--a full Big Mac beyond its recommendation of 2,200 calories for most children, teenage girls, active women,
Re: csa names
Allan, I guess you would know what works best for your local customers, I have trouble keeping up with you.have you moved again ? Where are you now ? This is the way we get the preps on as much earth as possible, Gideon!! I'm in Middleburg, VA. (or THE PLAINS, VA) That's west of Washington DC and East of the Blue Ridge. It's horse country. It's Grass Country. It's the home of Sissy Spacek and Robert Duvall and the home of the heirs of old school business founders. For example, members of the Mellon family are neighbors. And so on. A tornado took out 23 standard 100 year apple trees from my new garden last year. No one had seen a tornado here before. Know what? I've had twisters in my last two bd gardens. We've come to associate them with prep applications. I don't think that preps had anything to do with the apple killing tornado, though. Thanks for checking up
Re: csa names
Allan, You sure don't know your celebrities and where they live. Sissy Spacek lives outside of Charlottesville, VA. I know this because when we had Komondors 10-20 years ago her husband came up and bought a couple from a litter. As far as other actors and the ilk, this isn't great country for them. Liz Taylor lived near by when she was married to John Warner but she quickly bored of being a Senator's wife and the local horsey scene. Mostly. the large estates belong to old money, the sort of inbred person that was born with money and in turn never did a thing with their life except ride a horse after a pack of hounds that are yapping at a scrawny fox. I imagine your middleburg market won't be those people. They aren't competent enough to buy food to feed themselves, they need someone else to feed them. Your market will most likely be the hangers on and the near do well (is that the correct term?) The people who own the shops that service the landed gentry, and the people who have enough for 10 acres and can afford to build a house of questionable taste with large pillars, brick facades and designs that below in another country and another time. You know, retired football players, computer executives who got out when the getting was good, and white collar crooks of various descriptions. My what a fine county you have moved to.
Re: csa names
Mostly. the large estates belong to old money, the sort of inbred person that was born with money and in turn never did a thing with their life except ride a horse after a pack of hounds that are yapping at a scrawny fox. Last weekend my arrival to the farm was slowed while waiting for three horsemen with a pack of hounds running around them. They were certainly saving themselves for the chase, I guess! After about 10 minutes they actually moved into the rough and let me pass. I had not idea that packs of hounds could be so large! The previous farmer here told me 'It's a great place, but waiting for the horses to go by gets a bit tiring.' ;-)
Re: csa names
And, of course, Allan, I should tell you about our little adventure with 'the hunt' and how they burnt down the house we were living in (long term house sitting) while we were at work because I wouldn't let 'the hunt' cross the property.
Re: csa names
And, of course, Allan, I should tell you about our little adventure with 'the hunt' and how they burnt down the house we were living in (long term house sitting) while we were at work because I wouldn't let 'the hunt' cross the property. OK, Leigh. I really don't like bringing this list down to the squabbling of neighbors with each other, but, I actually read in the Washington Post, of all places, that you are a person who plane out doesn't like rich people!! To temper this, I should say that after my 'welcome aboard tour' in Middleburg, I told my host I hate to sound like a tourist, but do you ever see the star of Gods and Generals, actor Robert Duvall, around here? only to hear from my host Allan, you just steer clear of Bobby Duvall. He's really rather an asshole.
EATING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY
From the IN CONTEXT pages http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC42/VanEn.htm by Robyn Van En The origin of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) concept, the partnership between consumers and farmers, can be traced to Japan in the mid-1960s. Homemakers began noticing an increase in imported foods, the consistent loss of farmland to development, and the migration of farmers to the cities. In 1965, a group of women approached a local farm family with an idea to address these issues and provide their families with fresh fruits and vegetables. The farmers agreed to provide produce if multiple families made a commitment to support the farm. A contract was drawn and the teikei concept was born, which translated literally means partnership, but philosophically means food with the farmer's face on it. Clubs operating under the teikei concept in Japan today serve thousands of people sharing the harvest of hundreds of farmers. The First CSA This innovative idea did not come to the US until the mid-1980s. At that time, I was in my second season as owner of Indian Line Farm. Many small farmers across the country were struggling with the financial realities of market gardening. Several of us, with the CSA concept at the tip of our thinking, had no real model to crystallize the thought. Subscription farming - paying on a weekly/monthly basis - existed and experienced significant support and proliferation through Booker T. Whatley's book, How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres (Rodale, 1987). However, it did not address limited financial resources at the beginning of the growing season or the question of community support. Then, in summer of 1985, Jan Van Tuin came to Indian Line Farm fresh with the experience of helping organize a Swiss version of the Japanese Teikei clubs. He and I talked briefly and decided that the Swiss experience was perfect to apply at Indian Line Farm. We attracted a core group of organizers and after many long discussions, dubbed the proposed endeavor Community Supported Agriculture, and introduced the concept to the Great Barrington community that Fall. We offered shares of some of the local apple harvest, and members received storage apples and jugs of cider each week. Most of the families from the apple project bought shares in the vegetable harvest for the following season. Today, there are at least 500 active examples of this original US initiative throughout North America. Each year, the number of CSA farms and participating members increases dramatically. Though there are variations on the basic theme, most successful CSA projects begin with a central group of consumers and producers who draw up a budget which reflects yearly production costs. The budget includes all salaries of the farmer/gardener, distribution and administration costs, plus costs of seeds, soil amendments, small equipment, etc. The resulting figure is divided by the number of shares that the farm/garden site can produce for; this determines the costs of a share of the harvest. A share is designed to feed 2-4 people with a mixed diet or 1-2 vegetarians by providing all of their vegetable needs for one week. Larger households and restaurants buy multiple shares. The consumer group of sharers agree to pay their share of production costs and also share the financial risk with the producers. In return, the sharers receive a bag of local, same-day-fresh, typically organic vegetables and herbs once a week all summer, and once a month all winter (East of the Rockies), if a root cellar or cold storage unit is available. Projects typically provide at least 40 different crops, and Indian Line Farm was able to feed 300 people 43 weeks of the year from five acres of land. Incentive to Farm We are still in the pioneer stage of introducing and adapting CSA to North America - home to the cheapest food in the world. Few CSA farmers are turning a profit, but they are covering all or most of their production costs, including a guaranteed salary. As our video states, It's not just about vegetables; most CSA growers are in it for the long haul. The evolving community relationship of CSA actually gives incentive and means to continue farming or to enter the field (no pun intended), with the highest standard of land stewardship practices. The CSA system also gives farmers financial credibility; I know that the CSA guaranteed income helped me get my farm mortgage. When lenders see that people are willing to take this risk with farmers, they begin to take more risks and try alternatives. The annual commitment and relationship with the members also affects our ability to cope with unexpected setbacks. After a rainstorm dumped eight inches of rain in three hours, the winter baking squash had to be picked prematurely. Everybody froze, dried, and ate as much as they could, but it was basically a $35 loss to each share. That would have been a $3500 loss to an individual
