Community supported agriculture generates smart produce that tastes great
By Glenda Bartosh
ItÕs about 1,800 km from the Fresno Valley, the heart of mega-agribusiness in California, to Vancouver. Depending on the truck and how itÕs loaded, your average loaded semi-truck-trailer uses 38 litres of diesel every 100 km. So figure about 6,800 litres of diesel is burned Ñ emitting all those glorious emissions diesel is famous for Ñ to haul a load of strawberries or spinach up from that California valley to a food distribution warehouse in Burnaby or Richmond. There itÕs sorted before being trucked again to retail stores.
And thatÕs the journey from just one mega-food source. Next time youÕre in the produce department of your favourite grocery store, check out the labels on the boxes. Countries like Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Taiwan make California seem like a next-door neighbour.
For 101 reasons Ñ not least of which is our
voracious demand for a greater variety of food on our dinner plates year-round
Ñ food is travelling on some pretty wild journeys these days to keep us
satisfied. The U.S.-based Center for Urban Education about Sustainable
Agriculture calculates that in the U.S., the average meal travels about 2,500
km to get to the average table. Add a few more kilometres to bring it north of
the 49
th
parallel.
Some food takes an exceptionally crazy trip. For instance, those little packets of C&H sugar you use in your coffee on Maui have travelled about 18,000 km, even though the sugar is grown right there in the cane fields next to the island restaurant youÕre sitting in. After harvest, the ÒrawÓ sugar is shipped to California where itÕs processed, then to New York where itÕs packaged into those cute little envelopes. Finally, itÕs shipped back to Maui.
Speaking of Maui, those luscious tree-ripened papayas we love embody another growing food-sourcing problem. They must be shipped by air to get here in peak condition. Airfreight is fast but it also generates 50 times more carbon dioxide emissions than sea shipping.
At this point, the concept of community supported agriculture, or CSA, seems like a pretty bright idea. In a nutshell, CSA is the idea of local communities supporting local farmers by pledging so much money per month throughout the growing season so that the farmland becomes, either legally or philosophically, the communityÕs farm.
Customers take regular delivery throughout the growing season of superbly fresh fruits and vegetables Ñ organically grown Ñ or they pick them up at central distribution points. Most produce is picked the day before delivery and travels a very short distance.
While CSA does much to counter the craziness of agribusiness and the way most food is handled, it reaches much further than that.
ÒItÕs the farmer and the consumer working
together to actually build an alternative food system. ItÕs a food system that
works, but itÕs not the same as the food system where you go into stores and
you get your seven-days-a-week, 24-hours-a-day products all packaged and
processed and looking pretty,Ó says Bruce Miller. Along with his wife, Brenda,
he runs Across the Creek Organics, a 500-acre farm on Meadows Road in Pemberton
that his grandfather started.
ÒWeÕre in this sustainability bubble Ñ weÕre talking about sustainability in every big project that goes ahead Ñ sustainable roads, sustainable housing, sustainable golf courses. But sustainability of food is absolutely the most important aspect. ItÕs sustenance; itÕs what you eat and how you survive, and itÕs the most used and the most travelled item we go through every day.Ó
The idea of CSA, like much of our food, was imported from afar, in this case, Japan. In the early 1970s, a group of women there concerned about pesticide use, the increase in processed and imported foods, and the corresponding decrease in the farm population. They started teikei , which means Òco-operationÓ or ÒpartnershipÓ. A more colourful phrase associated with teikei is Òputting a farmerÕs face on food.Ó
And thatÕs exactly what community-supported agriculture does. It eliminates lord knows how many middlemen, keeps local money in local pockets, and introduces you to the guy next door Ñ in this case, Bruce Ñ who supplies you with quality produce. It also connects people with all kinds of good things: farms, the Earth itself, how things grow, and what they look, smell and taste like when theyÕre really fresh. Not to mention slowing things down a bit.
ÒWhen people get our boxes, they really look forward to cooking, and thatÕs the way it should be,Ó says Miller.
ÒCooking should be an enjoyable part of the day.Ó
One hundred strong who canÕt be wrong
Across the Creek Organics started their harvest box service with just eight customers; now they have more than 100.
Harvest boxes packed with fresh, seasonal produce are delivered June through October to central locations throughout Sea to Sky corridor where customers can pick them up. Each box also includes a newsletter complete with recipes and interesting tid-bits about the farm and whatÕs growing.
Twenty-two acres of the farm are certified organic by the Pacific Agricultural Certification Society and grow everything from herbs and gourmet lettuces to potatoes, sweet corn and root vegetables like parsnips and beets later in the season. Other sections of the farm are devoted to wetlands, old growth and conservation.
Across the Creek Organics will also be selling their fresh produce at the Whistler FarmersÕ Market in the Upper Village starting in mid-June.
To sign up for a harvest box and do your bit for sustainability, check out their website at www.acrossthecreekorganics.com or call 250-894-6463.
ItÕs a fact
¥ The transportation industry is responsible for more than 60 per cent of CanadaÕs air pollution.
¥ Diesel emissions are a complex mixture of about 9,000 organic and inorganic chemical compounds produced when diesel fuel is combusted, they include carbon (soot), nitrogen, carbon monoxide, aldehydes, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and an array of hydrocarbons.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who once was astonished to discover a 12-year-old boy in a store who didnÕt know that peas came from pods.
