In the courtyard of Topinambur’s ancientfarm, which had never moved to petrochemical agriculture, sharesfor over a hundredfamilies are packed in Jute bags made by a co-op in Bangladesh. Weighing and dividing of the harvests is done in rotation by Topinambur workers, who also do farming, organizing, harvesting, running the Zurich store and delivering shares to depots. starting a producer-consumer food co-op in Zurich. I was encouraged by Swiss interest in ideas that were unusual, especially since they came from someone who spoke no German. If only all of us could be so open as to accept outside perspectives that willingly. We used the garden at an ancient Swiss farm that was extremely diverse and which had never switched to using chemicals. We set up a storefront in town for the project, which we called Topinambur, French for Jerusalem artichoke. At the storefront shareholders could pick up their share of vegetables twice a week, along with foods like olive oil and citrus fruits from various Italian co-ops we knew. A friend of mine was a doctor for SSR, the big European student travel cooperative, and she sparked off a wave of interest in the Zurich CSA among SSR people. This brought one man, who had been involved in the movement to make Swiss banks more responsible, into the core group, and he managed to bring the project into the ‘mainstream’ of the alternative movement in the city. For me, this success became a problem in some ways as people were no longer joining for philosophical reasons, but because it was a fad. I think this left the project ideologically vulnerable to the ‘free’ market mindset and all it’s subtle accompanying problems. But at the outset, the way the Swiss approached this project was significantly different than CSA's I later worked with in the States. In the States I often felt very frustrated, and embarrassed of my own culture’s barriers to what was common sense thought and behavior in Switzerland. If I could make a few observations I would say: • In Switzerland there is no stigma against thinking for the long-term. In many day to day situations it was apparent that this was a culture where people were concerned about their effect on the community. • The average Swiss has more experience with cooperation in general. In the States people can cooperate, but for most of the population it’s an unusual experience. • The Swiss were interested in the history of the CSA project. In the States it often seems that history bores everyone, so people don’t care to learn from it. • The Swiss paid their annual shares in advance, allowing for almost no bookkeeping and no chasing down of late payments. This isn’t because they all have big bucks: they have a higher rate of savings and a better appreciation of long-term costs. In the States payment plans always creep in, adding to accounting costs and hassles. • The most striking thing in Switzerland was the social commitment to these projects: both farmers and shareholders were sure of each other. In every group in the States that I have seen, the core group seems to lack faith in the consumer’s willingness to pay true costs such as overruns. In Switzerland the organizers and farmers would rather be in another profession than continue to be martyrs and take personal losses while producing for the community. They initiate CSA’s to create sustainability in human resources, not to push farmers to the breaking point. After two years at Topinambur Christophe and I organized another project: a food delivery system based on human power. The result was trailers [see photo left], and the beginnings of my present work [see page 14]. Switzerland has many problems that I wished to help solve, many of them international. The level of energy and commitment among activists there was something I have rarely experienced in the States. Whether I like it or not though, the States are what I know best, and the time came when it seemed impossible to get involved in Swiss change as deeply as I would like. I never doubted that I could start a CSA in the States, and I wanted to introduce the idea through a working example. After returning to the States it took about a year and a half before I found people to start the experiment with. As it turned out it wasn’t in a large city but in the small community of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Rain Winter/Spring 1992 Volume XIV, Number 2 Page 7
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