Good points, Dillon, thanks for responding.
I wanted to look at this in a speculative way especially, I almost wish I hadn't posted about a real implementation of this (which is really not a CSA, even)--what does it mean to scale the principle of the CSA? Maybe just spreading knowledge? maybe the customer has to become the farmer? what's a good design in terms of a) social connection/social capital b) feedback from systems and c) economy of scale/obtaining the best yield?
Maybe it comes down to having each CSA--hyperlocal--be a better CSA. A more appealing one. A more engaging one. A more inspiring one. As you said, not just a picture of a carrot but an experience to connect with the earth. I will never forget what Leah of SoulFire farm told me about a kid from the foster care system, autistic and nearly non-verbal, touching the soil with his foot for the first time. He started speaking again, and told a story about how his grandmother had gardened when he was very little and how much he had enjoyed being out in the garden. That kind of thing is a part of what the CSA customer (in many cases) is looking for, is hungry for. You can't put a price on it, you could but it would be self-defeating in most cases, but you can get a benefit from it--loyalty, involvement, engagement, willingness to get more informed. To pool resources and investment to make things easier for the farmers (a humane slaughterhouse in Massacusetts, for example, so the farmer doesn't have to schlepp up to NH or down to Providence and deal with market monopolies--I may have details wrong here but this was the gist of what a farmer told me is her challenge). To pool energies for harvest. Managing volunteers is a whole
art form in and of itself, but there are low-risk, high-yield, savvy ways of doing this that do benefit the farm. Hyperlocalism really helps. But having some simple, clear guide for doing things can also help in your hyperlocal area--you don't have to reinvent the wheel completely. You have the CSA model, and then you have more steps to follow to facilitate connection among the members. People do want social connection and community, and done badly community-building can be a drag but done well it can be a simple effort.
If you think about Alcoholics Anonymous, a worldwide non-orgnization that has local groups and no legal power to regulate what any group does, you have a kind of model for decentralized order. Or something like a BNI (business network international) or other free associations. I don't know as much about how these operate. But they are global as well as acting locally.
A part of this, I think, may be that farmers need to stand up and say, "I am not a charity case, but there are real costs to eating food. I need you, my community, to be adults about this and take the responsibility for the farm that is naturally yours. It can't really fall all on one person. It's not a business the way another business might be. It is inherently interdependent. What I do goes into your body. Your life is dependent on my life, as my life is on yours."
Some brainstorm ideas:
* 10-year CSA contracts--a commitment for a long enough period that the farm can really get permacultural. Or a lifetime membership.
* stronger requirements for work participation--or at least requirement to be physically present, for those who aren't physically able to do farm work
* more support for the fridge-to-table component of things (this is a major weak link in our house's CSA participation--recipes are not self-cooking, and I think if we had more social support, if there were another CSA member in the area who said, "Hey, I wanna have you guys over and we'll cook these recipes together and share what we make" we'd totally go for it. We could be that CSA member, but so far I've never even met the other members, except the person who gets the drop-off, briefly, so it feels awk-ward with a hyphen. Making more social support would add value that the supermarket can't compete with.
* giving back to the farm: city-wide
compost pickup is great, and personal composting is great, but there are so many things beyond composting that can be done. Of course there's Fukuoka--just throw it anywhere, not good for the
city usually--but there's also the fact that your city compost is inclusive of all the junk that your neighbors, whom you don't know and don't really trust with your life--might be putting into their compost bin. Persistent pesticides? heavy metals? weird shampoos? bubble gum? I have no idea. Would I use city compost in my garden? Not in the beds I'm going to eat from. But if I have a direct relationship with my farmer where my compost (and someday even my
poop) were closing the cycle, and if I knew that everyone else in the CSA membership has signed a blood oath to put only what will not harm the seventh generation in their outputs, that would be another huge increase in the trust level.
* mastermind principle -- CSA's helping CSA's: a yearly CSA-focused-only conference, in person or by phone or both, where farmers can share best practices and tell their stories and be heard. Mastermind principle is about people putting their minds together to further each individuals' goals, and accessing the "master mind" or the mind of the synergistic relationship that is formed in the group's dynamic. The group being more than the sum of its parts. It's used by businesses, I've not heard of farmers using it per se. Conferences tend to be more informational, with experts presenting and others listening; a mastermind group has each person take a turn to be the focus of attention.
The CSA was invented in a context, by Rudolf Steiner, I believe, or the concept was derived from the concept of the biodynamic farm, which is not just a model of a farm but of a farm-and-human-community unity. it's about the whole farm and community as a single, living organism. There is a flow to that. The material supports the cultural, the cultural doesn't have to curtail itself to fit into material priorities, everyone has an equal voice in the decision-making. The CSA will work best, I think, on both the local and global scale, when it is viewed with these principles in mind. A community of CSA's rather than a corporation of CSA's.
This got a bit afield from the question of how to
sell this to an engineer who wants the eggs not to cost twice as much as the supermarket eggs, but maybe it's sparking some ideas.
Lastly, food just doesn't cost all that much, compared to other things . It's weird how people will hunt around so much to save 30c on a carton of eggs, yet blow a thousand bucks on a new gadget they don't really need. Rent or housing cost much more than food, and fuel (heating and transportation) is up there with food. Isn't it worth buying a bit better food? do we really need this to be at such a low price?
I'm gonna read more of the large-scale
permaculture thread and see what I can learn.
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