Picking Peppers in Cherry Valley

A chance 5 minute conversation back in March led to me turning up at Stroudsburg PA bus station hoping that Heidi was going to let me into the secret of the CSA or community supported agriculture that is becoming an exciting opportunity for new entrants in the states. Thankfully she did collect me and with her husband Gary, welcomed me into their home for a week. Here I learnt that there is more to the American diet than burgers and that although we sometimes talk a different language, problems are just the same. It quickly became clear that Heidi could do with out a house guest during a busy garlic festival season and two days after her worker had left. So I had a chance to earn my keep and was set to work learning how a CSA worked from the bottom up. The weather was very hot in the day and cool at night, I got fit picking tomatoes and came back with a great suntan. I also came back being reassured that I could still work all day without the constant interuptions that happen at Higher Fingle.
Community supported agriculture (CSA) an interesting idea that seems to have great support. A CSA is a project which is often vegetable or produce, but can be meat or eggs, that the customers sign up for in January giving the often young farmer the capital to buy seeds and inputs.

Cherry Valley CSA had around 80 customers that paid $600 in January and started collecting their vegetables in May through to October. In September when produce was abundant they were receiving around $40 a week in squash, garlic, potatoes, carrots,tomatoes, peppers and wonderful fresh veg. The farm was also able to sell surplus produce at a local farmers market and attended a number of garlic festivals each year to sell the high value garlic crop. The customers that I talked to thought that paying early in the year guaranteed that they would get the produce and the were keen for the farm to continue operating. In 2009 early tomato blight had destroyed the crop, but this year abundant tomatoes meant they could take home basket loads. Although many were disappointed in 2009, they understood that the value of the CSA was being able to share in the bad times as well as the good, reconnecting people with the reality of food production. During my time in the states I saw many variations on the CSA themes which included buying clubs (paying $40 a year for privilege of buying from the farm stand) internet buying clubs and chicken shares. Although had a fantastic level of commitment from the customer to support the young farmer to make a living.

Like any farming, margins were tiny and the work was hard. Heidi in common with many new entrants had a passion for farming and was living her dream. Heidi, from a non-farming family finished a business degree then worked for the Peace Corp in Mali. On returning to the Sates in the late 1990's she decided that she wanted to farm and set about getting experience working for growers. Seeing 47 acres owned by Stroudsburg township not being utilized she approached them with a business plan in 2005 and managed to rent the land on a ten year lease for $1 a year. Through determination and hard graft she has cleared and fenced 5 acres to produce the vegetables. That leaves the other 42 acres of woodland and scrubby overgrown land that has so much potential but needs so much more than 10 years to do it in. In the UK Heidi would have been able to apply for an environmental grant to help maintain the biodiversity and provide educational access. But in the states that support is not available so each step will be only be taken when the money allows.
Heidi's wish list was to install some irrigation (hopefully this winter), get her customers more involved with the physical work, find the money to build a classroom and have time to have more fun. Her husband Gary had recently started working full time on the farm and his extra support,I hope will mean that she can a little more. Yet again I had met a new entrant that was determined against the odds to farm and worked tirelessly to make her business work.
I left Cherry valley when the weather turned to rain, but I left with having made some great friends that I hope will do me the honour of visiting my home one day.