From “Fresh Off the Farm”
in the November 3, 2003 issue of Time Magazine
From Alaska’s Arctic Organics to West Virginia’s
Flying Ewe Farm, CSAs have sprouted across the nation. Call
the trend antiglobalization writ small, a way to connect with
neighbors, help small farms and combat the energy waste and
pollution of hauling food long-distance. Also, CSAs tap into
concerns over homeland security. Says Brian Halweil of the Worldwatch
Institute, a Washington think tank: “Knowing your farmer
brings peace of mind, especially in the face of terrorist threats
to the infrastructure, and food-contamination recalls.”
The CSA movement began in Japan some 30 years ago with a group
of women alarmed by pesticides, the increase in processed food
and their country’s dwindling rural population. Their
teikei—partnerships with local farmers thorough annual
subscriptions—spread to Europe and the U.S. From a single
Massachusetts CSA in 1986, subscription farms in the U.S. have
boomed to about 1,200, some of them serving more than 1,000
families…
CSA shareholders are also motivated by their palates. Thanks
to refrigeration trucks and subsidized highways, U.S.-grown
produce travels an average of 1,500 miles from farm to plate,
25% farther than in 1980. Picked four to seven days before
reaching supermarket shelves, fruits and vegetables lose nutrients
and flavor along the way. Worse, the economics of big agribusiness
demand fewer, hardier crops, this driving many varieties to
virtual extinction…
Even beyond economics, community-supported agriculture is
about something deeper: a sense of common good uniting those
who plant and those who eat.
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