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Yuppies, SUVs, CSAs



Michele:

Good points you make, ironies exposed, but I gotta tell you, as a CSA
grower some of my best friends are Yuppies.  Who else has the disposable
income to take a flyer on a startup CSA, as ours was last season?  Most
of these folks--two income families who earn more from their corporate
jobs than I've ever dreamed of--are under great stress and in a time
debt, but they made it to the farm every week for their veggies.   When I
wasn't wincing at their choice of vehicles, I had both compassion and
gratitude for these people, since even in startup mode with only 36 full
shares sold we were able to offer two "scholarships" to lower-income
families and bootstrap this farm into being.

<<you can sell the Obvious to the Affluent and call it social change. 
But they'll buy something else when they get tired of arugula and root
vegetables.>>

They ain't gonna get tired of _eating_ Michelle!  The food we offer is 
fresh, local and wholesome...values these folks appreciate. We expect to
have to establish a waiting list this spring and there'll be more
scholarships.  Meanwhile a garden-quality farm is born, kids get to see
where and how food comes to the table,  kitchen waste comes back to the
farm for compost, we are repopulating the area with honeybees with an
Adopt-a-Hive project...all with Yuppiebucks.

Woody Wodraska--Seeking Common Ground CSA
Honeoye Falls, NY          woodyw@juno.com
"The greatest fine art of the future will be the making
of a comfortable living from a small piece of land." -A. Lincoln

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:30:32 -0500
From: "Michele Gale-Sinex/CIAS, UW-Madison" <gale-sinex@aae.wisc.edu>
To: sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Steven McFadden/CSA book

Howdy, all--

Does a vast and potentially instructive irony lie in the fact that
Steve McFadden is doing a CSA book-signing at Barnes & Noble, the
MegaCorp That Devoured A Zillion Independent Bookstores? Or is this
my foolish-consistency-hobgoblin hog-tying my tiny mind?  :^)

Barnes & Noble is to the book trade what Starbuck's is to coffee
houses:  devouring local businesses and gorging themselves on
impulse shoppers.  (As a WebHead friend said the other day as we
perused a wall of brick-thick "How to use Windows" volumes in a
Silicon Valley computer bookstore, "Buy a book, kill a tree!" But I
digress.)  

...oughtn't we sustaggies use sustainable ag to teach a
progressive/local ethic of communication and business as well as a
progressive/local ethic of land use and community?  And to challenge
things like the lifestyle of the shopping mall and the mega-store?

Picture it: people come to the local shopping mall's Barnes & Noble
to talk about sustainability and local economy and a self-sustaining
food system?  Tell me, please, that the authors are going to raise
this as an issue at their reading!  And will ask those who attend the
reading to shop henceforth at local independent bookstores. 

[Regional Food Systems axiom 3.578:  Biting the hand that feeds one
can be a good first step toward feeding oneself.]


Then there's this:

> "The movement is continuing to grow," McFadden says. "People who
> care about their food, the environment, and their children, ought
> to take a close look at CSA and what it can do for them and the
> community where they live. It would work great on Long Island." 

Are the authors and the publisher promoting this book and CSA in the
Bronx too?  Lots of open space there for gardens.  Last I was thru
they'd torn down a whole buncha buildings.  Big empty lots. Hungry
people.  Not much by way of stores.  And need for community axis. 
And for green.  

Barnes & Noble got a store there?  You bet your boopkey they don't. 

Disclaimer:  there's nothing personal in my comments. Ya see, I saw
one too many upscale suburban Madisonians drinking coffee in shiny
new Sport Utility Vehicles with environmentalist bumperstickers
parked outside the whole foods (small letters) store this a.m. I'm
not saying that's what Steven and Trauger are doing...I've got my
red flags up, is all. Sure, you can sell the Obvious to the Affluent
and call it social change.  But they'll buy something else when they
get tired of arugula and root vegetables.

In my not so humble opinion, any CSA member who has a household
income of over $X per year--or who owns one of those bleeping SUVs or
has more than 500 square feet of lawn--should be required by the
CSA's formers/farmers to provide a half-share for people with low
incomes. $100-300?--that's not many tanks of gas to run around
suburbia at 13 mpg or whatever the riding lawn mower gets these days.
Seems a small tithe in return for the privilege of choosing
excellent food and the wisdom to know the difference.  

Of course, that may well be akin to selling sustainable ag as
indulgences for environmental and other sins (SUVs excluded), but
somebody's gotta lure the next Martin Luther up to the door, demmit.

:^)


peace
michele

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Michele Gale-Sinex, communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems
UW-Madison College of Ag and Life Sciences
Voice: (608) 262-8018   FAX: (608) 265-3020
http://www.wisc.edu/cias/


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