CSA conference a big success

gwfeenstra@ucdavis.edu
Mon, 17 Jan 94 09:24:13 PST

Our CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) conference on December 6, 1993 was
a big success! Thank you to all of you who wrote with words of encouragement
and interest. A special thanks to Mary Gold at the National Ag.
Library for sending us a stack of bibliographies on CSA. Following is a
brief summary of our presentations. We are in the process of writing up the
proceedings from the conference. These will be available for $10 within a
couple of months. I will post a notice on e-mail when they are ready for
distribution.

CSA Conference a Success

One hundred twenty-five enthusiastic people, most of them small
family farmers, packed the UC Davis meeting room where community-
supported agriculture was topic of a one-day workshop, December 6,
1993. The conference was co-sponsored by the UC Sustainable
Agriculture Research and Education Program, the UC Small Farm
Center, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, UC Cooperative
Extension and Fiddlers' Green Farm.

The program got off to a great start with Andrew Lorand, a long-
time Community Supported Agriculture consultant who is currently a
farmer and agricultural teacher at the Sacramento Waldorf School.
He gave an excellent overview of CSAs in the United States, their
history and some fundamental principles.

The program continued with descriptive, practical talks from three
farmers who operate CSAs--Sue Temple of Fiddlers' Green Farm in the
Capay Valley; Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm (Capay Valley) and
executive director of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers;
and Steve and Gloria Decater of Live Power Farm in Covelo. These
three farmers discussed the different kinds of CSAs they operate,
how they got started and why, their marketing strategies to
different clienteles, how they organize their production with the
CSA, sample boxes, various educational and communication strategies
they have developed with their shareholders, and the different
challenges they face.

After a panel discussion in which all speakers answered questions
from the audience, 50-60 participants drove to Fiddlers Green Farm
in the Capay Valley for a farm tour and more personal discussions
with Sue, Jim Eldon, co-owner and Liz Milazzo, harvest manager.

Workshop participants were overwhelmingly pleased with the day's
proceedings and wanted more opportunities to share information. In
March, UC Cooperative Extension and the Small Farm Center will co-
sponsor a second CSA workshop in Southern California. Interested
parties should contact David Visher (UC Small Farm Center) at
916/757-8912 or Faustino Munoz, UC Cooperative Extension at
619/694-2846. Proceedings from the UC Davis CSA workshop will be
available for $10 within the next few months. Watch Sustainable
Agriculture News and Technical Reviews or the Small Farm News for
details or contact David Visher or Gail Feenstra (SAREP) at 752-
8408.

Gail Feenstra
UC SAREP
(916) 752-8408
gwfeenstra@ucdavis.edu

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