The Farmers, Jon Cherniss and Bob Brackett, agree to grow the fresh produce paid for by the consumer using organic farming practices. The Farmers plan to grow enough crops to provide, for each Large Share subscribed by the Consumer, a weekly supply of produce that would retail for an average of $14.00 at the Urbana Farmers Market. Small Shares will receive an average of $7.00/week of produce, though the variety and timing of produce will be different than a full share. The approximate division of weekly production for a full share by the farmers will be as follows: Jon Cherniss - $8.50; Bob Brackett - $5.50. The Consumer and Producers agree that delivery and distribution of the fresh produce will be coordinated by PCSA and handled in the following manner: Delivery Location: Illinois Disciples Foundation, 610 E. Springfield Ave., Champaign Pick-up Time: Tuesdays, 4:00 pm -7:30 pm If members are unable to pick up their share on Tuesday, they may have another PCSA member pick up their share. Shares not picked up on Tuesday will be either purchased by the Common Ground Food Co-op or donated to a local charity. All income generated from the sell of shares not picked up will be placed in the PCSA organizational fund. If inclement weather or other factors prevent delivery on a Tuesday, the PCSA steering committee will notify the Consumer that delivery has been rescheduled. As partners, the Producers and Consumer will share the risks of planting, growing, and harvesting enough fresh produce to provide an adequate amount and variety of vegetables during the Production Period for each share subscribed by the Consumer. It is possible that some crops will wholly or partially fail. Hopefully, other crops will do better than expected, making up for the failures. I have included $_________________ for a (circle which) large share or small share. Consumer Signature and Date: x ____________________________________________ WORKER SHARES Why Work? Because PCSA needs your help in order to have an efficient distribution system and build a more cohesive and informed CSA community. What can you do? Work in the Distribution Room and help organize and bag produce fu!or your fellow PCSA members. Write Farm Reports, Feature Articles and Crop Information Sheets to help keep members informed about the farms and what to do with some of the unusual produce. How much can you Save? You could save a ton of money! For example, if you go visit either Bob’s or Jon’s farm and tell your fellow CSA members what you learned, you could get $10 off your share price. You might even get treated to some extra produce by the nice farmers. Then again, they might hand you a hoe. Or, you could staff the distribution room and help your fellow PCSA member get their goods and save another $10. But remember space is limited. Total savings available for all PCSA members is $900. How do you Sign Up? Just fill in the box below and a PCSA work coordinator will contact you and give you more information. But remember, if you do agree to help out and receive a worker discount, you will have to get your farm chores finished. In order to avoid a scheduling nightmare workers interested in working on the newsletter or staffing the distribution room will be encouraged to commit to a specific publication or staffing time at the beginning of the season. However, this will be between you and your coordinator. Name: ____________________ How much money do you want to save? ___________________ I want to (circle one or both): Work on Newsletter - Work in Distribution Room Note: If you want to receive a worker discount you should use the installment plan. Can I work on the Farms? You bet! In fact, those nice farmers are willing to pay you for your work or trade you produce. And if you catch them at the right part of the season, they might even trade jobs with you.. Check here if you want to work on the farm ____ Prairieland CSA Becomes Illinois Disciples Foundation’s Newest Programby John BarclayHundreds of Community Supported Agriculture projects (CSAs) have started up across the U.S. and Canada over the last 10 years as a collective response of farmers and consumers to the ecological, social, and economic problems we are currently facing in agriculture and community. In CSA, community members buy shares in the harvest from farmers and receive fresh organic vegetables for the whole season. With a direct partnership between local farmers and consumers, CSA attempts to provide a living wage for the farmer and fresh, organic produce for the consumers while using environmentally sustainable practices, limiting waste, and decreasing excessive transport. In the fall of 1993, a small group of community members came together to start Champaign County’s first CSA: Prairieland CSA. Three years later PCSA had grown from a handful of organizers to 134 members representing over 300 family and household members. 1997 will be our fourth season and we hope to continue to grow as long as community members are willing to vote for social change with their purchasing power. In February, the IDF Board unanimously approved Prairieland Community Supported Agriculture as an IDF Program. No stranger to the IDF, Prairieland CSA has had close ties to Common Ground Food Co-op and the IDF since its beginnings three years ago. PCSA has members active in all other IDF programs and has had its meetings and produce distribution at the IDF since its beginnings. What follows is a brief history of PCSA and a look at where we’re headed this season. The Farmers In the first organizing meeting of PCSA in early 1994, farmer Rick Larimore convinced everyone to get right to it and start a “pilot season” that year rather than spend all year planning for ’95. The growing season went well and Rick brought in an abundance of produce throughout the season. Though Rick enjoyed the CSA, he retired from farming that fall and began work on an Agronomy degree at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston. In the winter of ’94/’95 Rick and PCSA organizers found three new farmers for the ’95 season: Jon Cherniss, Bob Bracket, and Robin Callaway. Bob Bracket had been farming near Bondville for the last 10 years raising organic fruits and vegetables and took on PCSA fruits and some vegetables. Jon Cherniss and his wife, Michelle Wander, moved into Urbana in 1994 and had been growing organically for 7 years. In ’95 he took over farming the land Rick Larimore had leased and farmed north of Urbana. He took on growing the bulk of the CSA’s vegetables including his specialty: salad lettuce. Robin Callaway from Oakland, Illinois took on the herbs as her first commercial farming experience. Drought, flood, and bugs caused many crops to fail that season, but Jon, Rick, and Robin collectively met PCSA’s production goals. Robin had the hardest time of all because of various problems such as lack of irrigation equipment and access to water and decided not to farm again in ’96. In ’96 PCSA added a “corn share” grown by the Petersons in Colfax, Illinois. The corn share sold well, but a bad corn season and distribution difficulties caused the membership to leave it out of the ’97 share. Bob and Jon had successful summers and we are glad to have them back for thier third PCSA season. After a long search, Jon and his wife bought their own farm about 5 miles north of Urbana where he will grow his share of the vegetables this season. The Membership. PCSA membership has grown rapidly from 29 members in ’94 to 134 in ’96, representing well over 300 family and household members. The membership base consists of a good mix of U. of Illinois students and faculty and community members and has grown largely by word of mouth in clusters in various neighborhoods and workplaces. Each year the membership has taken on a larger role in the newsletter, produce distribution room, outreach, and other organizing tasks. In ’96 we offered working share discounts to reward volunteers. The “core group” of organizers has also grown with PCSA and now has about 10 people who coordinate volunteers, plan and organize the CSA, and run the distribution, newsletter, finances, etc. Between the core group, farmers, and membership, well over a thousand hours were put into PCSA organizing last year (this doesn’t include all the farm work Jon and Bob and their families and workers did). PCSA’s New Mission Statement Last year the membership wrote and approved the following mission statement to summarize PCSA’s goals. We wanted to keep it short and simple, yet have it reflect the diversity of interests involved in our CSA. PCSA is a local community based organization whose mission is to:
Getting Involved with PCSA We are now signing up PCSA members for this season and Jon and Bob are have their seedlings growing already. More information about Prairieland CSA’s 1997 season is available in the pamphlet rack at the IDF or on PCSA’s web page at http://www.prairienet.org/pcsa/ or you may contact PCSA’s outreach coordinator, Anna Barnes, at 239-3686 or via e-mail at “abarnes@prairienet.org” John Barclay is a founding member of PCSA, the IDF Bookkeeper, and the Maintenance Coordinator at the Center for Women in Transition. Trauger Groh and Steve McFadden from their book Farms of Tommorrow: Community Supported Farms & Farm Supported Communities. “As the farming crisis deepens, many people are seeking wiser, more effective ways to reestablish the relationship of human beings with the earth. The financial and agricultural practices of recent decades have made it increasingly difficult, and in some cases impossible, for existing models of agriculture to prosper. In America, the family farm has fallen victim to a relentless marketplace; meanwhile, corporate farms have tended to place short-run economic advantage over the long-term considerations of our relationship with each other and the earth. Modern ways of industrial and chemical farming play a major part in the deterioration of our environment on all levels; soil, water, air, landscape, and plant and animal life. Only a new, ecologically sound approach to farming can stop or slow down this deterioration.” A Second Year of Transforming Agribusiness as We Now Know It by John Barclay With the ground frozen and covered with snow, Prairieland Community Supported Agriculture is finishing up plans for this year’s planting and harvest. Prairieland Community Supported Agriculture (PCSA) is a partnership of farmers and consumers working together to provide a living wage for the farmer and fresh, organic produce for the consumers while using environmentally sustainable practices. This is accomplished by the farmers and consumers (1) dealing directly with one another, (2) sharing risks and benefits of good and bad weather, bugs, and weeds and (3) losing no money or wasted produce to intermediaries such as shippers, distributors, retail stores and other segments of agribusiness. PCSA started in Champaign County last year with a “pilot year” in which 30 shares were sold. Twenty-one of the shares were purchased by houses, couples, families, etc. and the remaining nine shares were sold to the Common Ground Food Co-op, Red Herring Vegetarian Restaurant, and a reserach project of Community Supported Agriculture at the University of Illinois. For $240 a share, each Tuesday for a period of 24 weeks, a shipment of produce was delivered to the Illinois Disciples Foundation from Rick Larimore’s farm in north Urbana. Then, people would come in and pick up their share of freshly picked produce. Payments for the season were made ahead of time, so Rick had the funds to pay for seeds and hire labor during the normally cash poor planting and growing part of the season. While the consumer’s committment was only to pay for the produce, there was volunteer participation in publicity, unloading the produce, working on the farm, and giving feedback through potlucks and written surveys. Fortunately, last year’s weather was good, and so the shares were big: tomatoes, onions, zuccinni, eggplant, peppers and much more made up a voluminous variety of steadily streaming veggies. If there had been a drought, Rick still would have received the same amount of money, but the shares would have been smaller. This reflects the CSA’s philosophy that the farmers should be paid based on their work while the consumers share the risk of good and bad weather. Unfortunately for the CSA, Rick Larimore has decided to cut back on the amount of farming that he will be doing while he returns to school, but three other farmers have stepped forward to work with PCSA: John Cherniss who recently moved to the area with plans of starting or working with CSA, Bob Brackett who has been growing vegetables and fruits in the area for more than ten years, and Robin Callaway who farms on her family’s land near Oakland. Rick and the three new farmers are now in the process of designing this year’s shares, based on results of the 1994 end-of-year survey. Soon we will be signing contracts for this year! While the share contracts are refined as to how much they will cost, what produce will be grown, how long the season will be, and what the delivery day will be; we are making a list of potential share purchasers. If you may be interested or know of people who have a use for fresh produce, give us a call with their name and address and we’ll send them more information along with the final contract when its done. If you like the idea of supporting the CSA, but don’t have a use for the produce, the best way to help out is by spreading the word about the CSA to your friends, workmates, family and neighbors. Box 2600, Station A, Champaign, IL 61825 http://www.prairienet.org/pcsa/ pcsa@prairienet.org |
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