Okay THNB CSA group members - you've taken me outside my comfort zone of being an "analog woman living in a digital world" and force me to learn how to BLOG. Please remember this is a work in progress - make suggestions, give feedback and we will make this work together.
14 comments:
Kim,
Thank you for jumping on this so quickly. oh dear is there spell checking?
Here are my post meeting notes:
An informed person should start calling appropriate departments at The Dept. of Ag. Resources.
My suggestions would be the assistant Commissioner to have a general conversation informing the dept. what this group is working toward and ask for suggestions for assistance. (suggestions, Minority farmers and their produce, list of active farms in the area)
Craig Richov, director of The Farm Viability Enhancement Program to discuss if the program might be able to help if the farmer is willing to participate.
Call SARE grant office to again discuss the goals and if they match any of their current target issues.
Do something outrageous like call Barbara Kingsolver to see if she wants a tax deductible trip to the Berkshires to do a fundraiser and promotional program.
Great,
Thanks Kim and Cary. I think the retreat went well. I'm looking forward to the CSA.... I'll try to think of other famous people that might be good for a fund raiser.
David
Group members -
Please use this forum to talk about issues and keep discussions going - but if you want me to reply or act immediately on something, e-mail me directly. THANKS! I am afraid that something really important will be posted and sit for a day or two until I remember to take a look at the blog.
I am just discovering this blog that Kim so wonderfully set up. Maybe we can use it to be more connected between meetings. I feel out of the loop from having missed the last meeting. Do we have another set up? I just talked to Susan Sikorski hoping she was coming here for Thanksgiving but she was here last week instead because her mom has been sick. She'll let me know next time she comes up...... Happy Thanksgiving! Caroline
Well, it's been a long time since anybody has used this blog - so I will post just to make sure it is still working, and then hopefully we can get this working as a tool for the THNB CSA group!
Just checking to see how this works again. Being in DC for the inauguration was amazing. I am proud to live in this country, for the first time in my life I think. I'll read over the meeting notes soon. Sounds like a good meeting. Caroline
Does anyone know if there a way that members can get an email telling them when something has been posted on this blog? Maybe we would get more used to using it if we were reminded.
On that note, I will also send this to the group as an email, but I have a couple thoughts upon reading the meeting notes. First, I need a list of things to do - I notice that we did this at the November meeting. It would work for me to have a short list of specific things I have committed to do each time we meet (or even assigned to do, if I am not at the meeting). Maybe, if we agree, we can make it a regular part of each meeting to check in on the previous to do list and create a new one to include in the minutes.
Also, just a clarification of my community gardening idea - I think I mixed up two ideas - I intended only to suggest that we continue to look at providing shares of food this summer as a trial, not that we get involved in starting a community garden. I am planning/hoping to try and plant something at the Adams Community Center, but I don't expect it to be a CSA group project. Depending upon my success, perhaps I can contribute if we do provide shares to a few families.
Here is my attempt at a list of questions for Susan and Sandy:
Are you aware that given the charitable nature of the CSA we are trying to establish, you can't expect significant income from the CSA itself? We should pay a nominal rent, and the farmhouse might be rented to the farmer, but the farm will use every dollar it can generate.
What are the property taxes, and can you imagine if the CSA used 3 acres, haying the rest to help pay for taxes?
Why did you turn down the state's APR offer, and was the door left open to reconsider that?
What length of time do you envision entering into an agreement with the CSA group for, to see if we can make this work?
How many people can you imagine parking at the farm?
Tell us about the emus, and all that is involved in making money from them.
Can you articulate a long term vision for the land?
If we were to share the farm with other groups, in order to generate more income for you, how many groups would you imagine it could support?
Can you envision chipping in on legal expenses to work out the agreement with us?
That is it--open for suggestions.
I think I would want to start by asking Susan and Sandy what their vision is before we start talking about money. What are the values each of us holds around this project?
BTW, What is the APR offer that was turned down?
All good things,
Emily
Hello everyone,
I also think we need to start at the beginning with our questions - what are the visions and values that Susan and Sandy hold around the future of their land that brings them into this conversation with us? Even though there have been a number of previous conversations - these have been with individual members of the group (to my knowledge) - and on Sunday we'll have everyone in one place hearing the same thing together - very important and very exciting!
I purchased a book from the NE Small Farm Institute "Holding Ground: A Guide to Northeast Farmland Tenure and Stewardship" that has been helpful to me in sorting things out. It asks (and elaborates) on four basic questions for landowners seeking a tenure relationship:
1. What is the property?
2.What are your goals and values?
3. What is your vision for the property?
4. What are your options?
Of course, it is the elaboration of these four basic questions that will spawn the talking points to answer them. I will email the group a pdf of these 3 pages in hopes they may be of help to us.
Good meeting Sunday.
I thought we covered a lot of ground.
After reading over the notes I like the idea of starting a CSA using the established consensus of what others have previously outlined, manageable numbers somewhere up to 25 share holders easily seems very feasable to me.
Our growing season is fairly short and would be be interested in any conceptual projections for how many weeks would be an acceptable target. Using our local demographics and considering other exsiting enterprises of this nature, what would be needed for us, as a group to create some economically viable numbers for the goals we are looking to achieve.
I would enjoy a simple poll to feel out what a would be considered standard nutritional staples to be grown verses what other passions for produce might exist. Possibilties might range from ethnic requirements to simply consumer trends.
And can they be can easily be achieved in our somewhat limited growing environment here in the Northeast.
Let us all enjoy the talk
I also thought the meeting on Sunday went well – it helped to have everyone there together and I really appreciated the flow of ideas and openness about what each party hopes to see this become. Thanks so much to Susan, Sandy, and David for meeting with us. A goal of 25 shares seems good to me for the start too – and perhaps we would ourselves be some of those shareholders. I think that starting with the basics at first makes sense – vegetables that are familiar to us all, in common varieties. Maybe Jennifer and other community garden folks can give us an idea about what the kids seem to like the best. And we can ask our potential shareholders too. The small subgroup will be meeting next week to talk about farm models and we'll report back. Talk soon.
No one has responded to David Bushika's request for dialog on renting greenhouse space for this season, at least directly. I would like to encourage David, as I think he brings many valuable things to the effort, but I can't speak for the group, and I think we don't expect the soil to be able to support much this season. Perhaps there are a few crops that do well in somewhat tired soil? By the way, Caretaker farm has never been able to grow a useful number of eggplants. But, David needs start up capital, as I understand it. and we would not want to provide that without some kind of paper agreement on our working relationship. Hopefully, we might soon have a proposal on how to run the farm, that would allow Susan and Sandy to decide whether to enter into an agreement with us.
Yes to do anything in the current season the soil definitly needs to be turned over as soon as possible in the spring so the sod can breakdown.
Ideally this should have been done last fall. The soil hasn't been depleted thru any recent vegetable crop raising. Only producing hay and from what I understand commercial fertilizer has been applied.
That in itself would cause an organic farm to be in transition for several years. Three I belive
Starting soil building efforts for future crop rotation purposes would be prudent.
Speakin for myself purple eggplant has always grown well for me. I had developed a very loyal eggplant clientele over time.
Eggplant is a heat loving crop and doesn't do very well in cool soil. I have grown many different types over several years trialing certain over in different seasons. Some are not worth the effort. Especially long season varities in the Northeast. That leads us into the question of what varities are to be acceptable, especially if one is working within the confines of current organic regulations and politics and considering other sustainabilty goals such as seed saving.
More food for thought
Dave B
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