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Re: CSA movement in Sweden



Hi list Steve wrote this and sent it to only me not the list he requested
that I send it on to the list Steve McFadden wrote:
I want to second that idea -- that government has had little to do with
CSA's success in the US, and that local groups are the true pioneers.

When I first started thinking, participating, and writing about CSA back in
1987, I felt that any new CSA should actively seek out whatever local,
county, state or federal help might be available.

But the experience of the years leading up to "Farms of Tomorrow Revisited"
(1998) demonstrated to me that my co-author, Trauger Groh, was right.
Community farms must arise from and be sustained by the local community --
the farm sustains the community, the community sustains the farm.

A given government entity might support a CSA in any number of ways -- but
the day will eventually come when that government either cannot or will not
provide support, or will impose regulations unrelated to the true needs of
the farm, the farmers, or the community.  Best to stay away from all of
that.  Let the actual communities freely and independently build these
foundation farms, and all the positive initiatives that can spring up in
conjunction with them.

If a given community -- neighborhood, school, church, or whatever -- freely
chooses to support a farm, and then to keep on supporting it because they
know the people and they know the food -- then it can and will endure.  Then
it will be what it claims to be, however it is organized or operated -- a
community farm.

So I second the suggestion: demonstrate CSA.  Let others examine it then, to
see whether the ideas and realities of CSA would serve their communities.

Good luck, Steven McFadden


"You never change anything
by fighting the existing.
To change something,
build a new model
and make the existing obsolete."
                 -  Buckminster Fuller:


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