Hello Frantz >Keith Addison a e'crit : > > No downside. We have a wwebpage on CSAs: > > > > http://journeytoforever.org/farm_csa.html > > Community-supported farms > > >known as AMAP in France >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-supported_agriculture >http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_pour_le_maintien_d'une_agric >ulture_paysanne
Thankyou. > > Needs some updating - actually it didn't start in Japan, it started > > in Switzerland. (And some of the links are broken.) > > >Wikipedia says it started mid 60's in Japan, called Teikei That's the myth, but Wikipedia's wrong, as it quite often is. This is an email I received from one of the founders of the movement in the US: >Hi Keith, > >I enjoy your website immensely and it is a real service to the small >farming community. We are a CSA farm and have been since 1990. >Sarah Milstein was one of our early members ( the one who wrote the >Mother Jones Article). > >I am writing you as I realize that your introduction of the history >of CSA is copied from the book co-written by Elizabeth Henderson. >While I respect Elizabeth enormously and regard her as one of my >friends, I continue to disagree with her choice of re-writing the >history of CSA. I think it is a disservice to anyone with a true >interest in the matter. While the Teikei model in Japan has its >merits I am sure it had little or nothing to do with the development >of CSA. I can assure you as I was there, in the mid to late >eighties when the first two CSA farms started up. Actually the >first CSA farm was not really in the US but in Dornach, Switzerland. >Dornach is where the Anthroposophical society has their >headquarters. From there, the idea was brought back with a man >named Jan vanderTuin. He told the story to Robyn vanEn (the other >co-writer of "Sharing the Harvest" who has since passed away) of >South Egremont, Massachusetts, who then involved some local >Anthroposophists to launch this model on her farm. She herself was >a Waldorf teacher with firm rooting in the ideas of Rudolf Steiner. >Robyn and her partners started with selling cider shares from her >old orchard and when a biodynamic farmer (Hugh Radcliff) joined the >project, they started included vegetables. At the same time >Trauger Groh, a biodynamic farmer from Germany, decided to re-settle >in Temple Wilton New Hampshire. He married Alice Groh, and became >involved with the local community of Biodynamic farmers. He >introduced them and the people of Temple Wilton to an idea he called >Community Supported Agriculture / Agriculture Supported Community, >and it resonated. I visited Trauger in 1986, and the CSA was just >getting some momentum. Other farmers like Ian and Nicki Robb, from >Brookfield Farm (Biodynamic) in Belchertown Mass. adopted the same >model to help bring their farm away from wholesaling. The CSA >movement was at first adopted on many Biodynamic farms while it only >later became more mainstream. The first years the annual >CSA conferences were hosted by the Biodynamic Association in >Kimberton PA. As others felt the need to break away from the BDA >as a parent, the BDA felt no need to continue its stewardship of >the ideas (ideas are in the public domain and everyone has the >freedom to pick it up and run with it in its own fashion). >Nevertheless we do owe those early pioneers some due respect, while >it might inspire someone to read up on the social ideas of Rudolf >Steiner that set the stage for this innovation. > >Jean-Paul Courtens >http://www.roxburyfarm.com Actually I didn't copy the "Teikei" origin story from "Sharing the Harvest", it was more second-hand than that, combined with other information on Teikei here in Japan. I should have known better. In 1984 I met some Swiss organic farmers who ran CSAs in Switzerland and told me something about the movement. The Teikei movement started independently in Japan in the 1970s (not the 1960s), but it didn't influence the start of the CSA movement in Europe and the US, where it arose from Steiner's ideas on community. See: http://www.joaa.net/English/teikei.htm Teikei: Japan Organic Agriculture Association Best Keith >frantz _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
