HomeGrown

I am contacting folks who I think might be interested in screening my film HomeGrown. I think it's something you might be interested in.
HomeGrown is an award winning film that tells the story of the Dervaes family who are living "off the grid" in the heart of urban Pasadena, California. They harvest over 6000 pounds of produce on less than a quarter acre, while running a popular website that is known around the world. The film is an intimate portrait of what it's like to live "Little House on the Prairie" in the 21st Century.
HomeGrown screened to sold out audiences at the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, and recently won the "PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD" at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Northern California. It has also shown at a number of other major festivals and community events around the world.
A sample quote about HomeGrown:
"Homegrown is marvelously inspiring, eminently practical, and one of the finest documentaries I’ve ever seen. Watching the film restored my faith that, even with all the devastation, we can still live thriving, beautiful and earth-friendly lives --- wherever we are."John Robbins, author The New Good Life, and Diet For A New AmericaIf this sounds like something you'd like to see, please check out my website and trailer at www.homegrown-film.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

All best regards,
Robert McFalls
Producer/Director: HomeGrown

Allies Farm CSA: Helping Those With Disabilities

At the Allies Farm in Hamilton NJ. they are doing more than just growing food for our needs. Allies Farm is also helping people with special needs. Allies and Mercer County Parks have partnered to create a unique community integrated program experience for participants with special needs. This is a wonderful opportunity for individuals with disabilities to buid positive relationships through employment, volunteerism, and horticultural therapy. Allies Farm offers opportunities for people who like to work outside the chance to be part of a viable business and earn money. If you would like to learn more about this program you can visit their website at http://www.alliesnj.org or contact Amy Watts at AWatts@alliesnj.org Or give her a call at 609-233-5855.

Ideas from Robyn Van En, 1988

From Basic Formula To Create Community Supported Agriculture by Robyn Van En

(Keep in mind that the copyright for this publication is 1988)

"Between the United States and Canada we could use a million new farmers. Even if only one thousand of them were CSA farmers it would be a vast improvement over the existing situation in agriculture. Several training schools and sophisticated appreticeship programs have been established to start fill-ing this need. CSA is also a 'hand in glove' fit with the Land Trust movement and the logistics of this are being explored and developed across the country everyday.

Agriculture that aims to be socially, economically and ecologically responsible from the get-go has been all but lost. CSA returns farmers and community members to these standards with much opportunity to affect and implement these goals. CSA is an approach to farming and community building that can improve every year. One discovers so much about the land and the nature of things in the course of a year; and the same goes for the dynamics of interacting with the core group or steering committee besides the other sharing members. Maybe the most important thing that is learned is that there is so much more to learn.

The community approach to agriculture is increasing in demand yearly. Every city, town and village should have the option of creating their own food system where they can actually see the vegetables growing, be informed about how the vegetables are grown, and know who is growing them."

Picture Credit- http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/success/ctruck.gif

What is the essence of CSA, yesterday and today?: Thoughts from a College of William and Mary student, Zoe Welch, about the CSA movement

Since its beginnings in New England in the early 1980’s, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has grown and developed in myriad, and sometimes surprising, ways. With influences from both European and Japanese alternative agriculture movements, CSA developed in the United States as a movement aimed at fostering a sustainable symbiosis between local food production and local economic and community systems. With direct influence from the European Biodynamic Movement, the original ideology of CSA emphasized holism in both philosophy and practice. Biodynamic agriculture espouses the view that the farm is to be treated as “a self-contained entity or organism.” [1]
Accordingly, one of the first identifiable leaders in the CSA Movement, Robyn Van En, created her Indian Line Farm CSA model with emphasis upon the benefits gained from the strengthening of spiritual relationships within the CSA schema. Van En’s ideology promoted the concept of the “core group,” a tightly-knit community of subscribers bound together by their commitment to their CSA farm, as an essential element to health in CSA operations. Broadly, it would seem that the initial CSA operations placed greater emphasis upon the idea of strong commitment and self-identification, both subscriber-to subscriber and subscriber-to-farm, as definitional of proper CSA ideology.
As importance was placed upon the necessity of both “spiritual commitment” and “operational practice” in constituting CSA, the original CSA models can be seen to have a great emphasis upon holism as a defining tenant. However, as CSA has developed over time, the emphasis upon holism and the necessary pairing of spirituality and growing methods within CSA ideology can be examined as a changing paradigm. Increasingly, it would seem that as more people become involved in the CSA Movement, and as more CSA models are tested and developed at more farms, that standards of acceptable constitutive CSA ideology are changing as well. What began as a one-model system for CSA practice now comprises numerous permutations and sub-permutations from that “original” standard CSA model. Among the CSA models now seen across the nation include: the free-choice model, multifarm CSA, cooperative CSA, pledge model, and the standard model. Additional definitional complications arise from the frequent hybridization between models, as well as the lack of a standard, third-party, classification system or source.
With these developments, a general trend can be noticed within the national CSA community—the increasing occurrence and acceptance of CSA programs undertaken as economic strategies. Of the growing numbers of CSA programs that have emerged in recent years, many more have been undertaken with a mindset that the economic element of CSA can be separated from the spiritual element of early CSA ideology. This is evidenced by the implementation of CSA programs alongside other such diversifying economic strategies as participation in farmer’s markets and selling to restaurants in a single farm’s operations.
Noting this development, many questions present themselves. How can we, as members of the CSA community understand these issues of “secularization” in the context of CSA ideology? Is there such a thing as “true” or “proper” CSA philosophy and practice? Is the assumption that original CSA ideology included elements of spirituality even a correct one to make? In a movement that has been characterized by its grass-roots empowerment and fluidity of standards, communication within this community is obviously the only way to elucidate the answers.
[1] Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation: Community Supported Agriculture. http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/biodynamic.html#com

(Picture Credit- New Farm, Rodale Institute http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/0104/csa-history/images/indian-line-farm.jpg)

2007 Census of Agriculture Results

This is the first year that the USDA generated a statistic relating to Community Supported Agriculture. They found that there were a total of 12,549 farms that 'marketed products through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)'. This number is based on the total number of farms in the US (for 2007)- 2,204,792. This means that less than 1 % of farms in the US are participating in a CSA arrangement. Also, it should be noted that the wording in the Census can be confusing. As far as we can tell, 12,549 is not representative of the actual number of CSA operations. The number represents how many farms, participated, in some way, in a CSA 'arrangement'. For instance, there could be a farm that runs and operates a CSA, but several other farms occasionally bring their product and market them through this CSA. The states above 1 % were: Maine (1.95 %), New Hampshire (2.09 %), Vermont (2.35 %), Connecticut (2.87 %), Rhode Island (2.71 %), Massachusetts (2.07 %), New York (1.00 %), Washington (1.11 %), California (1.18 %), Hawai'i (1.80 %), and Alaska (2.92 %). Let us know your opinion about this.

Survey- Your Comments Are Welcome and Important!

Currently we are in the process of going through our entire CSA farm directory, about 1350 farms, state-by-state, in order to provide an up-to-date listing of CSA farms. Another project that we are starting is an attempt to update the center in general and to be able to provide services that the CSA community would like to see. We have designed a survey with questions that address these issues. Please feel free to fill out the survey. Your comments are very helpful and we will be taking them into much consideration. Thank you for your time in helping us.
Click Here to take survey

Robyn Van En Center New Blog

We're very happy to be launching the first Robyn Van En Center blog. We feel that the blog will be in an improvement to the services of the RVEC and make communication within the CSA community more interactive. We look forward to communicating with you! Contact us with questions, concerns, or suggestions (csacenter@wilson.edu or (717) 264-4141 Ext. 3352). Thank you.