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Green and growing: Community-supported agriculture
By Brianna Bailey and Ron Jackson
The Oklahoman
7-6-05
INDIAHOMA - A future for Oklahoma farmers might be growing in Barbara
Stroud's tomato patch. Or in Gary Grose's beehives. Or in Cindy Sterling's
fresh goat milk.
Community shareholders support veteran farmer
Or, so to speak, in the moonlight of the family farm.
Stroud, Grose and Sterling are part of a growing movement called
community-supported agriculture. Farmers and prolific gardeners are
learning to cut out the corporate middleman by selling straight to the
customer.
Selling directly to customers is a long-standing tradition at some roadside
produce stands and farmers' markets, but community supported agriculture
operations, or CSAs, sell to customers by contract.
Already common in California and New England, community supported
agriculture farms are gaining a foothold in Oklahoma. Six years ago, a
national survey found no such farms in Oklahoma. Today, more than 40 are
listed on various agriculture Web sites.
"I really think CSAs are about to take off here in Oklahoma," said Maura
McDermott, communications director for the Kerr Center for Sustainable
Agriculture in Poteau. "Consumers get the freshest produce, and it's a way
for producers to attract a totally different market."
'Buying a piece of the garden'
Barbara Stroud, a special education teacher in Indiahoma, had been selling
her garden produce on a small scale to the manager of a local vegetable
stand. She left a Kerr Center workshop inspired by the community-supported
agriculture method.
Stroud soon began distributing letters to prospective customers, or
shareholders, who would pay $225 for an entire season of fresh produce.
Stroud promised to deliver bags of vegetables harvested at her family's
280-acre farm.
Her confidence soared when shareholders began to sign up. She limited her
list to 10 customers, fearing she would miscalculate her yield.
"They are buying a piece of the garden," Stroud said. "People want that
taste they remember from the garden when they were kids."
Stroud and her family now are deep in the process. Rows of yellow squash
and zucchini are piled high on their kitchen counter. Soon, ripe tomatoes
and melons will be added to the harvest.
Framed by a thick tree line and golden wheat fields, Stroud's backyard also
features a quilt of freshly tilled soil, various types of vines and patches
of green corn stalks. And when the time is right, her four children will
join her in the harvest. If all goes well, Stroud may expand to 20
shareholders next year. "I was selling to a local vegetable stand in
Cache," she said. "But it's my sweat and my work, so I might as well make
the money, too."
Competing 'with the big boys'
Gary Grose ventured into community supported agriculture through economic
necessity. He runs his Tipton Valley Honey Co. out of an old white church
building in Tipton. He use to supply 56 Wal-Mart Supercenters with honey,
but he said he couldn't compete with cheaper honey from China or large
companies who could offer large volumes.
"So much of our food anymore is from foreign producers at the expense of
local business," Grose said. "A small company can't compete with the big
boys."
Family farms have been in decline since the Great Depression, according to
the U.S. Agriculture Department. There were 6.8 million farms in the United
States in 1935, but about 2 million farms remained in 2002.
And the money Americans spent on imported food increased from about $512
million in 1992 to more than $1 billion in 2001, according to the National
Agricultural Statistical Service.
Community supported agriculture farmers claim the demand for locally grown
produce is expanding in Oklahoma as consumers realize where their
vegetables are grown.
Sharon Miller, owner of New Beginning Farm in Pink, began one of the first
community supported agriculture farms in Oklahoma in 2002. Her shareholders
have access to her 75-acre farm, and many bring their families to enjoy the
atmosphere. They pick up their weekly bags of produce, see the fields where
their dinner is grown and even ride Miller's donkey.
"More people are looking to support the family farm, and they want to know
where their food is coming from," she said.
Cindy Sterling, owner of Swinging Gate Farm in Norman, thinks the demand
exists because people are more healthconscious.
"The produce is better because it comes straight out of the ground,"
Sterling said.
When Sterling and her husband, Tim, began their community supported
agriculture operation two years ago, they could not keep up with the demand
for fresh produce on their fiveacre patch of land. Sterling now sells fresh
goat and cow milk along with vegetables to about 20 regular customers.
Robert Waldrop, president of the Oklahoma Food Co-op, said food is about
the only area where people have complete control.
"I have to buy my electricity from polluting coal-burning plants, but I can
decide what to eat," he said.
Waldrop said for the past two years he has bought all his beef and pork
through community supported agriculture shares.
"If we want to help rural Oklahoma," Waldrop said, "we need to spend our
money there."
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