for market share to stay alive, the farmer can enjoy the taste of stability that comes with satisfying consumers directly. Any farm can benefit from having even a small number of shareholders; the extra stability helps even market farmers. When problems arise the share group can help to solve them: if there are too few hands at harvest time the shareholders, feeling committed to help, either take up the slack themselves or make some other group decision. A form of direct democracy can emerge in the midst of what used to be apathetic consumption. To help the shareholders make informed decisions, and begin to learn about problemsolving in agriculture, most CSA’s ask them to come farm for a day or two each year. CSA’s are direct producer-consumer cooperatives, one of the best forms of non-competitive economics. While worker cooperatives are known for mostly equal relations within the company, they often acts as an unaccountable independent unit in the marketplace: cooperative capitalism. In contrast, producer-consumer co-ops have natural limits on size and domain. A small group of farmers must both farm and take care of their membership, so the membership won't vote to thin down their relationship through expansion. The face-to-face nature of the relationship, along with the shared risk of the community, ensures that production in general will be carried out to everyone’s satisfaction. The beauty of this solution is its creation of farmer incentive through social relationships, rather than tlirough a profit motive: people finally are able to thank the farmer and lend a hand in times of trouble. And in regard to product, CSA’s provide for people's needs directly, so optimal use of resources is defined by those affected rather than by a faceless bureaucracy, as in state-communism, or by a corporation, as in global market agriculture. CSA projects are successful despite a number of cultural obstacles. The problem first is convenience. CSA farms drop off produce in town twice a week, so the household shopping isn’t “one-stop”. A convenience compromise is usually made: if the shareholders want to pay extra for the labor to deliver to tlieir homes, they understand the costs, since the CSA hopefully keeps open books. There are other compromises. People aren’t accustomed to paying for vegetables before they see them, so some CSA organizers rename the commitment “subscribing” to vegetables, not quite an accurate description of a face-to- face relationship. But usually a new member changes more than the CSA: for example the modem cook is usually not familiar with seasonal vegetables, so CSA's offer recipes in their newsletters to help them learn about plant diversity. One of the biggest adaptive problems with CSA’s is farmer confidence. Often they end up giving people twice as much as they could possibly eat, trying to compete with the market’s abundance. Fanners also don’t always trust that their consumers will pay cost overmns. In contrast, shareholders tend to tmst the fanner so much that it remains a challenge just to get people to look at the accounts, or visit the farm. To get new customers, farmers often want to be more lenient with payments, but collection schemes take time away from farming. Muslin Creek Farm in Cottage Grove, Oregon (see photos), has reached an interesting compromise with people unable to pay for an entire year’s vegetables at once: monthly payments begin before the planting season, and stop during the fall, providing early capital for seeds, and a late season when vegetables come without payments. The lessons we've all learned from dealing with the harsh instabilities of market economics sometimes lead us to compromise the CSA idea. But if the concept is pursued now in it’s most radical form, perhaps a new generation of farmers and consumers will develop sufficient will and understanding to risk working together. Above: Over the winter CSA shareholders get seasonal vegetables such as Kohlrabi and Kale, salad greens and herbsfrom the greenhouse, and storedfoodfrom the root cellar such as squash, potatoes, onions, and garlic. Muslin Creek CSA is in its second season: ifyou're interested in talking to them, contact Tal Carmi, Leslie Rubinstein or Ross Randrup at 79296 Repsleger Road, Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424, phone: (503) 942-0805. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 5
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