09.17.09 kulturnatib

CSA

Early last month I did a performance art piece about food. In particular, about how a morsel of industrial food takes so much more energy in planting, processing and transporting than it can ever give.

To illustrate or express this point, I pushed a large wheeled plastic garbage bin 10 kilometers from our house to the art gallery where I did a communion or eucharistic ritual. In place of the host, however, was a piece of paper board the size of a slice of loaf bread with the above mentioned thought about industrial food printed on it.

This wasteful reality is, among other things, fueling the growing food revolution here and in other countries that in many ways marches under the banner of CSA or community supported agriculture.

Last weekend was a celebration of this movement with many member farms of the farmer's union or the Union des Producteurs Agricoles opening their farm gates to friends, visitors and subscribers.

We visited Le Vallon des Sources, about an hour's drive west from us named so because it is tucked in a small valley where there are some clear springs.

It is this farm that, since February, we have subscribed to, though we picked up our first basket only in May. Our subscription consists of a box of freshly harvested organic seasonal vegetables delivered weekly to a central location from where, in turn, we pick it up.

Our subscription, or partnership with the farmers, Michel Massuard and Monique Laroche, along with many other families and individuals signified through, though not solely, an amount we pay upfront covers for our part or share of the harvest of the entire spring and summer growing season.

For the farmers, it frees them from the uncertainties of the 'market,' sharing the inherent risks of farming thus allowing them to plan the growing season better and with more variety through farming methods that are ecologically sustainable leading to much less waste and a healthier environment, on the earth and hearth.

For us we get fresh vegetables – usually harvested in the morning of the delivery – from a certified organic farm. Though we normally don't get advance notice of the particular contents of the box, except through the seasonal guides or through the farm's website and regular email messages, we're always in for a surprise.

Our last box contained a head of Romanesco Cauliflower which can easily be mistaken for an ornamental plant with its beautiful Fibonacci spiral structure mirrored down to its smallest florette. Though not tasting as elaborate as its looks it provides an interestingly textured spin to any salad.

The farm was I had imagined it, though better. Instead of the monotonous monocultures of industrial farms it was an alternating patchwork of vegetable strips that, at the time of our visit, were mostly harvest ready. There were some greenhouses, one bulging with ripening tomatoes. Irrigation hoses snaked across the planted and crop ready strips. There were farm machinery that, while looking their age – no gps navigated, satellite data fed equipment here -- , also looked as homey as the rest of the farm including the clutch of free range chicken and some rabbits.

After the vegetarian lunch there was a game to test our knowledge of vegetables through identifying their leaves. I opted out of that game. I wanted to enhance the hands-on knowledge of our toddler who just a few weeks back had her first close encounter with farm animals though this was on a more controlled environment of an agricultural museum.

Our hands-on knowledge was enhanced as well. But this was mostly on the social and solidarity level, like meeting with similarly minded consumers, individuals and families, and agricultural producers, a community, in short, who shared the same concerns for healthy living and the desire to act on those concerns.