Deciding what I wanted to focus my blog post on was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. Truly there is so much that surrounds our agricultural system, that it was hard to narrow my scope to a single topic. What I hope to focus on during discussion is our role as consumers in the food market place and community focus on food. Firstly, I'm attaching an article published by Michael Pollan on the food movement. The article is a little long, but it would be great if you could read Part. 3 of the article Beyond the Barcode.
The article can be found here: http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-food-movement-rising/
What do you guys think? Do you agree with Michael Pollan's stance here? Do you think there are parts of the discussion that are missing? If so, what are they?
I've mentioned this previously, but my first real exposure to CSAs occurred over this past summer. As part of my SIP I spent the summer working on a Community Supported Agriculture farm just north of Pittsburgh called One Woman Farm. (You may all be familiar with CSAs already, but if you would like, a pretty good explanation can be found here: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/)
While working at One Woman Farm, I began to appreciate the idea of food coming directly from a farmer and the transparency involved in CSAs. Additionally, I found the idea of a community formed around the support of the person or people growing their food to be something I knew I wanted to become more involved in. The relationship between consumer and producer is created and maintained through mutual trust, where members entrust a farmer to produce fresh, diverse, and healthy food while the farmer may depend on the member for financial means to grow food, but also for support in times of hardship whether that means acceptance that the share may be a little light some weeks due to crop failure or potentially even volunteering some of their time to help harvest or weed.
Through research and observation I discovered that as good as this all sounds in theory, sometimes it just doesn't work. As much energy and heart famers put into creating a CSA, sometimes there just isn't enough commitment, support, and/or resources for a farmer to successfully continue their initiative into the next season. CSA farmers often face moral and financial dilemmas in assessing share prices at the beginning of the season. Although many farmers would like to make their produce available to people of all incomes it can be difficult to do this while still making a livable wage for themselves. How then can this be countered?
One of the oldest CSAs in the US, The Temple-Wilton Community Farm has a unique system for budgeting their costs while taking into account the ability of the farm workers to earn a livable wage as well as the financial restraints of their shareholders. On their website, Temple-Wilton explains their membership process:
At our farm we don't charge a fixed amount for our share and you take the produce and milk according to your needs. This is different from most other CSA's which sell a share in the harvest and then give out a fixed portion of produce.
Each year in order to give prospective members an idea of what the operating expenses of the farm will be we make a budget and divide it by the number of adults who are joining and then come up with a figure per adult per month that is the average that is needed to meet the farm budget. Members then take into account the farm's needs and their own needs and make a pledge based on all the information. We encourage those who can afford more than the average to pay more so that those who cannot meet the average amount are still able to join.
The average needed for the 2014/2015 season is $120/adult/month. Your pledge covers all the vegetables we produce plus up to four gallons of milk per week.
If you are interested in learning more about The Temple-Wilton Community Farm the website can be found here: http://www.twcfarm.com/
So what are your impressions overall? Do you think that Community Supported Agriculture initiatives are a possible solution to the current state of our system of food production in this country? Do you think the Temple-Wilton Community Farm model could be recreated and used in other communities or does it seem like this model could not really be applied universally? Are you familiar with any other specific examples of community focused food growing which seem to be working?
I think Michael Pollan’s ideas are really interesting and I would agree that the “food movement is also about community, identity, pleasure, and, most notably, about carving out a new social and economic space removed from the influence of big corporations on the one side and government on the other” (Pollan). For me, one of the reasons I am drawn to the food movement is the insistence that developing relationships is important and that in re-imagining our world, centering our lives around relationship building and maintaining is key. When I think about people with whom I have close relationships, these were often formed in connection to food of some sort. I support the food movement because I firmly believe in intersecting multiple fronts and issues together and envisioning systems and communities in a completely new way.
ReplyDeleteHowever, while I was reading Pollan’s article, I was also reflecting upon what Hannah’s post brought up, the white dominated ideology of the food movement. So then I wonder whose community and whose life Pollan is basing his arguments off. Everyone does have to eat, which makes food a common denominator, but I do think people have individual relationships to food that need to be respected too. Thinking about this, I appreciated the inclusion of feminist thinking in the article. Just like race should always be included, and at least for me personally, is an aspect I think about a lot, I don’t always consider the food movement from a feminist lens. I was really fascinated by the insight on how food has been associated with the natural, body, etc. – things that have “civilized men have sought to overcome with reason and knowledge” (Flammang) and I think that would be an interesting area of further exploration.
I also think that discussions on CSA are very relevant to the conversations about developing new relationships with each other. I am in favor of CSAs, but do think that they are very complex systems that also have problematic areas. Reading the article about CSA in general, I was really struck by the idea of ‘shared risk’ between farmer and consumer. I think that this is really important and when attempted/done well, exemplifies the development of new systems and communities. What I think is interesting about CSA is that it potentially allows folks to lessen the distance between themselves and the farm, which I think helps humanize the work.
I’m still not exactly clear how the Temple-Wilton Community Farm model works and I would love to talk more about this in class. It seems like a good idea, but I’m not sure if it could be applicable to all CSA, but this is where I think more discussion would be good.
I really appreciate what Michael Pollan mentions in his article about America's industrialization and that aspect of history that parallels our relationship to food over time. Women were encouraged to get out of the kitchen during the second wave movement because contributing to the financial wealth of one's family was seen as more masculine and important than the nutritional care of the family. I also find his comment interesting about European countries constantly fighting for fair hours, while the US is constantly fighting for a fair wage. This conversation could get very tangled and bogged down with historical politics, but it brings up the unmistakable point that countries who see a higher value in fair hours are prioritizing time with family, and dinner time is one of those sacred times.
ReplyDeleteOne oversimplified statement Pollan made in my mind that food, "like sports", have the ability to transcend, class, cultural ethnicity, and race. First of all, I'm not entirely convinced that even sports can do that, as different racial and cultural sectors seem to gravitate towards watching different sports. And the entire article that Hannah posted disputes the same claim on food. For a white person to tell someone of African American descent that soul food is unhealthy would be extremely problematic; soul food, after all, stemmed from slaves only having access to the cheap cuts of meat and other ingredients, such as lard, corn and collard greens.
In terms of the CSA, I agree with Mariah in that they are complex systems that demand careful observation. I think it's great that the Temple-Wilton CSA found a flexible and effective structure for their business, but I don't think it would work in every community. There are so many factors that go into community shared businesses, particularly agriculture (population of community, geographic location and growing conditions, farmer's experience, economic and educational stances of community, diversity) that it makes sense that each CSA would have to be run a little differently to be successful. But I think that's the beauty of it. We have this awesome opportunity in the agricultural realm to customize mini economies based on location and inch away from commercial consumerism, that I think it's worth taking the risk to try out different ideas.
I found Pollan’s comment about what is attractive about the food movement very enlightening. “What is attracting so many people to the movement today (and young people in particular) is a much less conventional kind of politics, one that is about something more than food. The food movement is also about community, identity, pleasure, and, most notably, about carving out a new social and economic space removed from the influence of big corporations on the one side and government on the other” (Pollan). I found this to be true. The food is probably the most important thing to most people, but the social aspect that shifts its gears away from big corporations is something that I see a lot of young people like myself gravitating toward.
ReplyDeleteThe Temple-Wilton Community Farms approach to dealing with the moral dilemma of wanting to feed people of all incomes while also making a livable wage for themselves is really interesting. I think that asking people who feel like they can give more so that others who cannot are still able to participate and get good food is something that we all hope would work. I’m just not sure how much this works. I’d be interested to hear the statistics of participants and the amounts of money given. As much as I would love to say that this idea sounds good, I feel like there are so many ways that this could get confusing. The farmers would have to make decisions based off amounts of money that people were able to contribute.
In general, I want to believe that the Community Supported Agriculture initiatives could be a possible solution to the current state of our food production system in this country. However, with the amount of people living in the country and the amount of food needed to sustain these people, I am not sure if this would work. I am looking forward to discussing this further in class.
I think one of the biggest challenges facing local food providers and farmers is the culture around food production, costs, and consumption. We are socialized to believe that food should be cheap and convenient. We are marketed food that comes to us pre-made, that we can buy and consume with little interaction with the people and communities around us. We are used to fully stocked shelves in super stores and self-check-out lines. I have had a number of conversations with famers who tell me that people expect to have fresh strawberries in the winter and to buy local products for the same price as at the grocery store. It seems that a lot of times consumers feel like they are doing a great service for the farmers that produce their food. They are “helping” local producers and are thus entitled to complain and maintain unreasonable expectations and what ever level of distance that they desire from the farm and the people who produce their food and not take responsibility or ownership for their membership and the larger mission and goals of the farm.
ReplyDeleteAnother level to this is the limited access to locally produced food because of costs, travel, prep time, etc. Due to a system that subsidizes industrialized systems of agriculture that produces foods in monoculture set-ups in huge quantities, local small-scale foods can often cost more than other sources, especially in comparison with highly processed foods. Michael Pollan had a really great point when he spoke to this issue in his talk here in Kalamazoo. He said food prices weren’t the problem, but rather we needed to focus on securing a living wage.
I think the CSA model of the TW farm is cool in that it addresses socioeconomic injustice and looks to combat that through the redistribution of resources that holds members accountable to their community. It is awesome that in their model people are asked to take a commitment to the CSA and to evaluate their own situation; pay what they can and take what they need. It is also really cool that they talk through some of the costs with their members, to show them what goes into the food they are eating. However, changing the culture around food production, cost, and consumption is difficult and requires a lot of extra work on top of producing the food in a just and sustainable way. But, I do think that creating a food culture in which people have responsibility and an understanding of where their food comes from is vital to changing the current system, and that CSA models have a huge role to play in that transformation.
I know this was alluded to in earlier comments as well, but I think that Michael Pollan represents a dominant-culture voice in the local/alternative food movement. While I think that his work has an important message about the value in family meals and in connecting with the origin of food, I have a hard time separating his message from his position of privilege. Towards the middle of the article we read he mentions that the food conversation is one that transcends lines of race and class. I think I would disagree with him here and lean more towards an argument of food as a conversation that is very racially and socioeconomically segregated.
ReplyDeleteI find myself really drawn to the idea of CSAs as a means of connecting urban families or non-farming families with locally sourced food. I think that long-term, it might offer the beginnings of a solution to the current problems of our food system. Aside from CSA food prices as an issue of access for many people, I think where CSAs become potentially problematic is when they function as white owned and operated organizations or businesses promoting a way of eating and a process of connecting with food that fits into the dominant white narrative of the U.S. and attempts to dictate the “right way to eat good food” to communities of color. I am really interested to hear other perspectives on this in class on Thursday! And I hope to explore in more the depth the way that the Temple-Wilton CSA functions in its community.
Some of the ideas that Pollan brought up seemed legit to me, particularly that many Americans view food as fuel rather than sustenance. While I would like to see people slow down and enjoy cooking and eating together, everything in our society is working against that. The hustle-bustle of daily life seems to be getting faster and faster, and as more people populate the earth, there is more competition now than ever. On the optimistic side, I think the more people that join the slow food movement, the more likely it will be to flourish. But realistically speaking, I think it's a huge problem that small organic farms struggle to survive.
ReplyDeleteFood is one of our most basic needs, yet small farmers can barely make a living. There's nothing that makes me feel better than a good meal. Organic farmers should be our heroes - people who want to feed us nutritious & delicious food, what could be better? It sickens me that someone who provides something as essential to life as food should struggle to make a living, while entertainers and other puppets live in excess and people worship them!
I have felt for a while that we have the power to vote with our dollars. I'll gladly support a local farmer and spend a little more than I would at the supermarket. I know that purchasing the produce will help the farmer be able to keep making it. I'd love to see more CSA's popping up, because I do feel they could make a significant dent in the system we live in. I liked Pollan's idea to go beyond the barcode. And it doesn't always have to be a money for goods exchange. Bartering is a totally viable option that is often overlooked.
My gut instinct tells me that a bunch of CSA's set up like the Temple-Wilton one would not work universally, but in the right community, I don't see why it wouldn't be a great thing.
I definitely think CSAs are a possible solution to the current state of our food production system. I think the focus on education is particularly important. One of the most powerful ways that we can work to change the system is by making choices as consumers. There are so many people that have no idea what they are supporting every time they buy meat from a CAFO or GMO corn. By educating more people about the importance of knowing where their food comes from and reconnecting people to the land, CSAs can slowly increase the strength of the force fighting big agriculture.
ReplyDeleteThe movement for real, healthy food is growing. Even just a decade ago, it was close to impossible to find organically grown food in a common grocery store. Now stores like Kroger and Meijer offer almost as many organically grown foods as conventional foods. This has happened because more and more people have become educated and have made the conscious decision as a consumer to buy organic foods. CSAs are a fun way to get entire families learning about the importance of sustainable agriculture, and hopefully change them into conscious consumers for life.
Thank you so much for sharing the Temple-Wilton Community Farm with us, Sarah. It's really amazing to learn about their system, which I think goes against what is the accepted way to do commerce in our country. That they have been around for longer than any other CSA, and that they have a long waiting list every year, shows the staying-power of this model. I did a lot of reading on their website, and to me, their farm represents so much more than a way of providing healthy, wholesome food for their community in an environmentally enriching way. They're seeking to change the way community members see purchasing food as a truly community-building endeavor. And that doesn't just mean interacting with each other while eating. It means being conscious of what need to take from the weekly harvest, and what you can afford to give; it means being conscious of the people you've invested with, what their needs are and how you might fill those needs; it means being adaptable and sharing the risk with the farmer. I think it really seeks to challenge the capitalistic structure and asks its members to challenge that structure as well. They’re asking that their members truly participate in the system, which I think is so necessary in creating a sustainable/sustaining CSA. (Much of my interest in this model comes out of seeing my mom’s struggle to make the CSA shares accessible to anyone, regardless of their financial constraints. She has had several members sponsor shares, she has provided working-share options, and she has tried sliding scale rates for shared. But I think something like Temple-Wilton’s system is what she’s ultimately trying to achieve.)
ReplyDeleteI also think that having these hyper-localized models allow them to be culturally relevant and representative. And if the system is focused on nurturing relationships, I think it might bring about more connection and awareness of oppressed and marginalized groups.
One point in Pollan’s article that presents a huge barrier to the above system is our perpetually time-constrained culture. We’ve squeezed food preparation out of our everyday schedules, replaced with ‘more productive’ things. I eat while I do homework, I don’t cook that often, and I eat alone a lot. “Flammang points out that the historical priority of the American labor movement has been to fight for money, while the European labor movement has fought for time,” (Pollan). This is key! It’s starting to become a privilege in our culture to cook for ourselves, not to mention take the time to know/care where/how the ingredients we’re cooking with came from! Simply because we have other priorities, societally imposed and normalized and structurally enforced, that restrict us from understanding and owning our own diets.
Overall, I agree with the underlying message of Michael Pollan’s article. We have become very disconnected from our food and do not prioritize cooking, let alone eating, much anymore. We eat in cars, we eat while doing other things, so it’s no wonder we aren’t connected to the food we’re consuming. What he failed to discuss, as some of you have mentioned, is which populations his arguments include and which ones they exclude. There is certainly not a universal relationship to food — we all require food to survive, but every individual, group, and nation views food differently. Although I generally liked Pollan’s ideas, he spoke from a place of privilege without acknowledging the implications of this.
ReplyDeleteI think that CSA’s provide a good model for providing healthy food to a community. However, we need to be careful to not apply this model the same everywhere. For example, the Temple-Wilton Community Farm model seems like a step in the right direction, but it would still need to be adjusted for each specific community. I do think that CSA’s can help our current food system, but especially with our growing population, I don’t think they are an end-all solution. CSA’s may be the place to start, but I don’t think they will be enough to solve the many issues with our food system. I’d love to hear about everyone’s experiences with CSA’s and their opinions on if they are feasible or not.
I think that there are a lot of advantages to CSA’s, one being that it’s extremely interactive. It allows a community to work together, with various opportunities of involvement. With that said, I found it to be really interesting to read Pollan’s work after Hannah’s post on white privilege within the local/alternative food movement. While I appreciated Pollan’s perception of creating a community within the food movement, I do question these words as they are coming from the stance of a privileged, white man. While CSA’s may build strong relationships founded on sustainable and local food within certain communities, I find myself struggling to conceptualize this as beneficial to all communities. Julie Guntham argued how ‘localism’ often created by CSA programs can be dangerous as a community can exclude those who they don’t identify with from their community—further establishing racist or classist tensions.
ReplyDeleteI still believe that the CSA movements and eating locally are extremely pertinent to the alternative food movement; however, I think that there should be a shift in focus towards equity and structural racism. Recently, I read an interesting article on Eric Holt-Gimenez, who is the Executive Director of Food First (a nonprofit organization that focuses on eliminating “the injustices that cause hunger”). In the article, Eric states, “To build strong, broad-based alliances and support new leadership we need to overcome the issues and obstacles that divide us like racism, sexism and classism. That means dismantling these oppressive structures in our food system and addressing the issues of white privilege and internalized oppression in our food movement. Dismantling racism isn’t extra work for transforming the food system; it is the work.” I think that CSA’s can be extremely beneficial—as long as they promote a way of eating that provides good food (whatever that may be) and doesn’t just dictate what the white definition of ‘good food’ is.
Michael Pollen’s article raises some important points about the divergence from the mainstream consumer driven food system towards the local food movement. I appreciate the current food movements’ efforts to recognize food as a social aspect of our lives and work towards building mutually beneficial relationships between producers and consumers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Pollen when he says that our food purchases should be made primarily on political and ethical values. I think that is a great goal, however with our current system we are urged by our circumstance to buy based off of convenience and price. Pollen stresses the personal and community benefits that come with being able to participate in the local food movement He cites farmer’s markets as being similar to public squares where people can meet and engage in conversations about social change. However our current system that supports cheap, readily accessible food, prevents some members of the community from joining in the movement. I think a big part of the local foods movement needs to be making the social spaces surrounding local foods more accessible to all members of a community. I do not think that it is entirely possible for everyone to get “beyond the barcode” as Pollen says many ‘locavores’ are aiming to do. By not having a fixed payment, the Temple-Wilton community CSA seems like it is actively working towards having a socially inclusive space. I think this CSA is definitely a step in the right direction, but I know this issue is very complex and I look forward to hearing where our discussion goes on Thursday.
Wow, thanks for this, Sarah. So much of what you've written and linked to goes to the heart of why I'm doing this work (or trying to). Pollan writes: "the attempt to redefine, or escape, the traditional role of consumer has become an important aspiration of the food movement." I think this is essential and why I was drawn to do a CSA rather than simply sell at a farmers' market. I saw the possibility in CSA to be economically and socially transformative. But because we are so firmly socialized into consumer/producer roles, it's hard to escape them. I see most (not all) of my CSA members still thinking that they are "purchasing produce" from me rather than truly becoming "members" of a community that supports my farm. And I wonder if CSAs (and maybe the whole local/sustainable food movement) can survive long-term if we are unable to fundamentally change how we relate to food and to each other. One struggle that I have and that I see other CSAs dealing with is that even though the model of CSA states that the farm's members help the farmer shoulder some of the risks inherent in farming and help the farm become more economically viable through making a season-long financial commitment to the farm, because farmers are setting share prices based on what they think the market will bear rather than (as TW farm is doing) communicating to their members the true costs of producing their food and asking members to cover those costs, in reality farmers are still absorbing the majority of the risk and for the most part are not earning a living wage for their labor. Farmers are a stubborn, hardy, and dedicated lot, but I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect this new generation of farmers to be able to continue to farm under these conditions. And the loss of another generation of small farmers (or potential farmers) who are willing to be good stewards of our agricultural knowledge, genetics, and ecosystems has dangerous implications for all of us.
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciate the connection with feminism that Pollan is making because I think that the shift in values that he is talking about is one of the keys to making a viable, resilient food system a reality. Why on earth is food--one of the essential elements required to sustain our lives--not more highly valued in this culture? Why will we choose to spend time and money on clothes, toys, electronics, and entertainment rather than on food? Why is growing food together, cooking together, and eating together--activities that cemented human social relationships for centuries--not at the center of our current culture? Why is good, healthy food a "luxury" but having a cell phone a "necessity"? This doesn't happen by accident. It's a manifestation, in part, of our devaluing of things considered traditionally "feminine": the body, sensual pleasure, family and community relationships, health and well-being, nurturing, etc. Our social fabric is woven from our values--until we change our values to privilege more highly what we've called in the past "women's work," I don't think that we can expect fundamental changes in our food, farming, and social systems.
I appreciated Pollen’s characterization of the food movement as one that strives “to create new economic and social structures outside of the mainstream consumer economy.” He points out that labor movements in the US have been a fight for money, whereas European labor movements were a fight for time, which may have been the wiser choice. In class and on the farm we’ve been referring to how we need to change the culture/values around food. I think that this needed shift is an important component that I had not yet been able to pinpoint/articulate prior to reading this article.
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly then, I can see this issue of valuing money over time in my own CSA-like business experience. The Local Harvest links describes one variation of a CSA as where “non-farming third parties are setting up CSA-like businesses, where they act as middle men and sell boxes of local (and sometimes non-local) food for their members.” This describes the program that I managed when working for a food justice organization in Philly. Each week we would sell boxes of food at approximately half the average market price for that amount of produce. However trying to do this at all, much less locally, is of course not always easy.
Sometimes when our urban farm would have surplus food, then organic, fresh, local food could be included. But more times than not we were lucky to even get half local food of either our own, or the (semi organic) large-scale farmer that sold us food. I think that currently, while attempting to move to a new food system, yet also not leave anyone out of the movement as many of you have mentioned as a flaw of Pollen’s piece, then we have to straddle local with affordable and accessible. In the end, we would have loved to have all local, organic food in our boxes, but when you’re trying to maximize the produce in a $12 box of food, that is not always an option.
While the mini food system we created was not perfect, we did our best to remember to celebrate that people were willing to volunteer and build community with us through giving us their time to put the boxes together; that they would be eating produce instead of the artificially preserved, less healthy foods that they would otherwise get from emergency relief food, food pantry, or supermarket; and that they were learning skills to quickly cook tasty, healthy food from the recipes included with their box of food.
I really like what Pollen is talking about and what the food movement is trying to change and accomplish. I think the lack of community in our individualistic, capitalist society is something that needs to be changed and that can be done through the shared burdens and benefits of a farm. However, I am struggling to find a way we can bring this sense of community to less privileged communities. The food movement largely applies to privileged individuals and going back to Hannah's question, I question how applicable the food movement is in communities that are surrounded by an environment that makes survival a number one priority and a struggle. I think it is not realistic to think that the many people in American that are struggling to survive can philosophize about organic foods and community farming, especially when they come from a poor family in an urban area whose has never owned land or lived outside those urban areas. I think food and agriculture injustice is an effect of a much larger cause involving the people in power, which we must deal with first. I think before we can have a community that can philosophize about community farming and organics, we need a community that knows how the system functions, who it is benefitting, who it is exploiting, and also a community that knows the history of the system as well as their people.
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ReplyDeleteI think Pollen’s points were interesting. I appreciated you sharing the ideas of the Temple-Wilton Community Farm. In general, I think a challenge to the local food system is that many consumers in the country are very invested in not spending massive amounts of money on food and are socialized to believe that food should be cheap. Going back to pieces of our discussion last week, I think that there is a disconnect between people and food. Seeing food as fuel, as something that can get them through the day rather than something that nourishes ones entire body.
Nonetheless, I also believe that there are ways to educate the public about CSA’s which may aid in the stress the farmers feel in this movement expense wise. The aspect about the whiteness of the food movement also play a role in this. I believe that these CSAs have extreme potential to benefit many communities, but it is important that there is no explicit definition of “good food”, especially if that definition encompasses a predominately white connotation.
I think Pollen is pointing out something essential when he highlights the highly social element of food. He talks a lot about the food movement transforming into a movement based on community, which I think is extremely important to the changes that need to be made through food justice. The issues of values in this country, and how they are related to food are really important. This community driven food movement he focuses on is important to connect us to our neighbors, our farmers, and our food, ultimately leading us to a healthier and more wholesome lifestyle. While I think these things are very important, I think he lacks information on the issue of hunger. I think changing the values we have around food to be more community oriented can be extremely beneficial to underserved neighborhoods that lack nourshing food. I wish Pollen could have touched more on this. While it is important for EVERYONE to be connecting more deeply with their food, I personally believe the problem of hunger is more urgent. We can use his solution to fix both. We just can't forget that the issues that may not directly affect us are still important. Our liberation from our current food system is tied to the liberation of those who are going hungry, and we must not forget that.
ReplyDeleteI think the CSA is one model that can do this revoltionary work that fixes both problems of hunger and disconnect with our food. I think the Temple-Wilton model, especially shows how the CSA model can molded to include the issues of the hunger/malnutrition face by underserved and historically oppressed people. I am more interersted in learning about the sacrifices made by CSAs and the sustainability of this model, not in the way that it is sustainable for the earth, but that the lifestyle is sustainable for farmers. It seems like an extremely hard job and like people would get worn out. I would like to talk about what Amy said a few weeks ago about exploitation of farmers. However, the more community you add to your model, the more sustainable it may be.