Community Sponsored Farming Outside Knoxville

From the journal n+1:
The farm sits on a hill an hour northeast of Knoxville. It encompasses sixty acres, but only one and a half are devoted to garden produce—beans, kale, corn, squash, carrots, onions, garlic, basil, et cetera. Another six are pasture for the two cows, three pigs, six sheep, and fifty or so chickens. The rest is woods. The farm is owned by a couple in their mid-thirties who live there with their 4-year-old son and a beagle named Barney. They sell most of their produce through a CSA, and the rest at a weekly farmer’s market, along with meat, eggs, and baked goods. At the moment I’m the only intern.

CSA stands for Community Sponsored Agriculture. For a lump sum, members of a CSA buy a subscription to the farmer’s harvest season. Once a week, each member gets a portion of what the farm produces: a typical share might include three pounds of potatoes, a bunch of carrots, an eggplant, two heads of garlic, and so on, depending on what’s been picked that week. The farmers get payment up front, and don’t have to spend all their time pushing vegetables at markets; the members, barring catastrophe, get a reliable source of fresh, local produce. In the case of my farm, members sign up for a 25-week season, and can buy either a $700 “full share,” meant to feed a family of four, or a $500 “half share,” for an adult couple.

Read the rest of this article by Anver Davis…

Link: http://www.nplusonemag.com/organic-farming

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