Cultivating Community: Community-Supported Agriculture
(Page 2 of 3)
March/April 2009
By Laurel Kallenbach
A farm in the backyard
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When Nash started out, he got advice from Canadian farmer Wally Satzewich, who had a business growing vegetables from backyard plots in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Satzewich and Philadelphia local-farming advocate Roxanne Christensen have co-authored guides for small-plot intensive farming, or SPIN. Designed for less than an acre of land, SPIN-Farming uses only simple hand tools and can potentially earn $50,000 on just a half-acre.
“Up until now, people didn’t think of yards as serious sources of food, but that’s changing,” Christensen says. “Urban farming can be a viable industry and an asset to cities because it uses vacant or underutilized urban land to supply fresh, local food to residents.”
SPIN sells farming guides and offers consultation and an online support group for microfarmers. “So much farmland is being lost to development, but SPIN-Farming methods actually turn urbanization to the farmer’s advantage,” Christensen says. SPIN-Farming requires minimal land and start-up capital (between $5,000 and $50,000) because it doesn’t involve buying land or heavy equipment such as tractors. Because growers work in town, they can sell directly to farmer’s markets, farm stands and restaurant chefs—with no middleman.
How does a community garden project grow?
Community Roots couldn’t function without the neighborhood’s blessing. A few people on Nash’s block dislike the front-yard farming—especially in winter when the fallow gardens turn into muddy rows—but most neighbors are delighted. Instead of wasting energy mowing and drenching grassy lawns with water, they’re growing food.
Camille Hook, one of Nash’s next-door neighbors, decided to forgo expensive landscaping and grow vegetables after she remodeled her home. “We wanted to be part of Kipp’s soulful, meaningful cause,” Hook says. “Community Roots enhances our relationships with both our community and food.”
It also revolutionizes people’s tastebuds. Hook’s 7-year-old son, Jeremy, was once “challenged in the vegetable-eating department.” Last summer, however, he planted his own patch of edible flowers and invited friends to harvest lettuce and edible flower salads. “Now the kids clamor to eat chard, kale and grilled zucchini for dinner,” Hook says. “That’s working for me!”