Saratoga News

Cover Story

Photograph by Zach Beecher

Delivery trucks drop off fresh fruits and vegetables each week to members of the Community Supported Agriculture program.

Vegging Out

Health-savvy consumers are buying freshly picked produce

By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Mary Murphy grew up in a family of nine where the vegetables came out of the freezer. One box of frozen vegetables fed all nine, she said. But for her family of five, this Saratoga mom cooks fresh vegetables from her farm box, a carton she picks up each week as a member of a Community Supported Agriculture program. Every Thursday, at a drop-off spot near her home, she gets her organic, direct-from-the-farm vegetables, delivered that day from Live Earth Farm in Watsonville.

Four years ago, when Murphy first joined CSA, it took some time to learn all the different greens. She went to her vegetable cookbook to identify them and learn how to cook them. Now she takes such leafy greens as spinach, chard and kale, chops them up, puts them into soup or burritos, and her kids--ages 14, 16 and 18--love it. She loves it, too. "I know I'm getting good foods into the kids, and it's completely painless. I feel really good about the kids appreciating fresh vegetables. Brussels sprouts--my kids go crazy for Brussels sprouts," she said.

Murphy, along with hundreds of others in Silicon Valley, belongs to a CSA program.

The concept of CSA is to link small farmers with local customers. This is not a new idea, as there have been farmers markets for centuries. But with CSA, the customers buy shares from the farmer in the winter and, in return, receive a portion of the summer production. The farmers sell fresh, organic produce directly to families on a weekly basis.

For CSA members, it is not just about the vegetables. It's a statement of values: buying from a farmer who honors the land by using sustainable farming; supporting a local farmer to boost local agriculture; helping the environment by supporting a local distribution system that uses less fuel to bring produce to the plate; being willing to spend the extra time washing, slicing and dicing to fix the freshest of food and saying "no" to the agri-business mantra of "get big or get out."

Two farms offer a CSA program in the San Jose area: Live Earth Farm and Two Small Farms, both in Watsonville. Between them, they have 26 drop-off spots in Santa Clara County, half on Wednesdays, half on Thursdays. Most locations are someone's home, on a porch or a side yard. But some drop-offs are at a preschool, and one is at a church in downtown San Jose. The websites for the programs give general locations so customers can choose one most convenient to them. Once signed up for CSA, members are given the exact location.

Typically you prepay for the vegetables. This gives the farmer working capital for seeds and plants and working expenses. The farmer also then has an idea of the size of his market and can plant and harvest accordingly, assuring little will go to waste.

CSAs began in the United States in 1986 with a farm in New Hampshire and another in Massachusetts. The working concept was to produce locally what was consumed locally. In the 1970s a group of women in Japan, alarmed by pesticides and the increase in food imports, began a direct growing and purchasing arrangement between their group and local farms. This arrangement, called teikei in Japanese, meant "putting the farmers' face on food." U.S. farmers had not heard of the Japanese group when the New England CSA farms began, according to CSA historian Steven McFadden. Similar concerns were taking root in different parts of the world at the same time.

By 1990, there were some 60 CSA farms in the United States. In 2004 there were about 1,700. CSA farmers work to grow healthy and local food using sustainable farming. They don't use chemical fertilizers, pesticides or genetic engineering. Many, writes McFadden, "regard CSA as homeland security of the most fundamental kind."

CSA farms are concentrated in the Northeast, the West Coast and the North Central States. More than 80 percent are found in 16 mostly northern states. These states have large metropolitan areas and an ample consumer base, according to a 1999 CSA survey. A 2003 UC-Santa Cruz study of the five-county Central Coast region of California found about 4,900 people belong to one of the 14 CSAs in this region.

Here, the season runs about 36 weeks--from mid- to late March until mid-November. A share costs $20 to $30 per week, depending on:

* the size of the share

* if you order extra fruit

* if you choose the flower option

* if you sign up for pastured eggs.

You don't know what will be in your box, just that it will be in season and fresh. Last year an early warm spell meant plentiful strawberries beginning in March. This year, the cold, rainy weather has delayed the strawberries. But the lettuces are flourishing.

A small share ($19 per week) of vegetables from Live Earth Farm for the week of April 3 included a mixed bunch of beets--red and golden, broccolini, chard, fennel, baby leeks, lettuce--butter and red leaf, a bag of mustard greens, rutabagas and spinach. A family share ($25 per week) also had Meyer lemons, red cabbage, kale and carrots. The extra fruit option starts in May. That's worth every penny just for extra strawberries, which CSA members agree are the best they've ever tasted.

This is the 11th season for Live Earth Farm. In its first year with a CSA program there were 15 members, said Tom Broz, owner of Live Earth and known as Farmer Tom. "It was more like an extended garden with hand-dug beds. We grew whatever we could." Their customers were family and friends from his son's preschool.

Today he has almost 500 subscribers, which he calls "amazing." The growth has come from "spreading the word. There's more consciousness about organic, fresh, local and in-season produce. It's a conscious choice" to join CSA, Broz said.

CSA membership growth, he adds, "is more than just an interest in organic produce. It's about the connection to the farmer, the sustainable approach to farming. [CSA farmers] honor the balance, they don't push the soil." Broz talks about rotating crops, allowing fallow periods, improving the soil, planting a wide diversity of crops and improving soil fertility. "We work with the fertility that's there." He uses winter crops, such as legumes, to plow under in the spring, which provide stored nutrients in the ground.

Broz (rhymes with froze) also points out, with CSA, people know who's growing their food. "They know us. They can come to the farm and see how we grow. Their food is not coming from the wholesale market. We pick and the next day or two the customer gets the produce. The whole distribution" is different with CSA.

"You're eating with the season," Broz said, "when things are supposed to be ripe. You get a richer flavor, higher nutrients. Plus it's more efficient. We use less fuel to get it to you."

Some experts estimate food travels about 1,500 miles from farm to dinner plate. With CSA, it travels from the farm in Watsonville to Silicon Valley.

Broz, 42, grew up in Ecuador, where he fell in love with the land. "The whole agrarian thing appealed to me," he said. "My dream was always to farm." He came to the United States and earned a bachelor's degree in plant science from Cornell. Then he served in the Peace Corps in the South Pacific. Following that he worked for the Environmental Protection Agency. "There must be something else," he said. In 1995 he and his wife left San Francisco to begin organic farming in Watsonville.

Julia Wiley, of Two Small Farms, lives on Mariquita Farm in Watsonville with her husband, Andy Griffin. In 2002 their farm joined with High Ground Organics to form a CSA farm. She said 65 percent of their income comes from the CSA operations. They also sell directly to restaurants in San Francisco and have one farmers market. But there is "no wholesale. No middleman involved," she said. That means food goes much more quickly from the farm to the table.

She describes herself as the recipe queen and said Two Small Farms gives lots of recipe support to its customers. Along with the box of produce each week, both farms also include a weekly newsletter listing the contents of the box for the week, notes from the farm and recipes.

Jennifer Hanlon appreciates the recipes. This CSA member, Sunnyvale resident and mother of two said she had no idea what a leek was. "But now I have a recipe for leek soup. [CSA vegetables] take a little more effort, you have to wash them a little more to get out those couple of extra ounces of dirt, but it's worth it." Her children like the vegetables. "More than I did as a kid," Hanlon said.

Wiley said that CSA farms are organic, yes. But the question to be asking is: How fresh is it? Just because something is organic does not necessarily make it good. It can get "old and disgusting" in a store, she said. The label to look for is "locally grown."

Lydia Wang, a CSA member who lives in Almaden Valley, agrees. "Our veggies are fresher than the store." At the grocery store, sometimes vegetables are there a week later, she said.

CSA is like having your own gardener, Wiley said. "We do a good job. We've never missed a box or a newsletter and we're proud of that." Two Small Farms has 900 to 950 subscribers. Two Small Farms and Live Earth both offer a four-week trial membership.

Wiley said people love having a connection to the land. We have "u-pick days, kids days, pet-the-goat days at the farm. Even if people don't visit, they like knowing they can."

Both farms invite their members to visit and many do. Natalia Chang, from the Rose Garden area of San Jose, said it was "wonderful for our daughter to see and look at the goats, to see where the food is grown. I love my CSA."

And for Gordon, when the veggie boxes are delivered to her front porch with her name on one, "Every week it's like getting a present."

For more information about Live Earth Farm, call 831.763.2448. or visit www.liveearthfarm.com. For more information about Two Small Farms, call 831.786.0625 or visit www.mariquita.com. For more information about CSA, helpful websites are www.csa.org and www.localharvest.org.