Forging Edible Bonds

As cutting-edge operations go, the one taking root at Tom Willey’s organic farm in the Central Valley is surprisingly simple.

In the shade of a tin-roof shed, workers wedge bunches of sweet carrots, stalks of broccoli and other chemical-free crops into cardboard boxes headed straight to family dinner tables. Willey runs the equivalent of a home-delivery service for organic produce, a new way that small growers are making ends meet.

“I think there are ways to survive and leverage your smallness into something that corporate producers can’t mimic,” said Willey, 55, who delivers fresh-picked produce three times a week to more than 200 Fresno-area customers. “Educating people to eat locally, to eat seasonally, to have a personal relationship with the grower and the land the food comes from, I think that is the best [hope for] the future of the small farmer.”

The grass-roots approach is rapidly winning converts. Thousands of Californians now pay farmers to pick, pack and deliver produce just for them.

The movement began in Japan decades ago and migrated to the United States in the mid-1980s. Nearly 1,000 so-called community-supported farms have sprung up across the country, and as many as 100 are now doing business in California.

In most cases, the produce is trucked to central distribution points, such as schools and natural foods stores, where customers collect their deliveries. Subscribers pay in advance by buying memberships in the farm’s food club, which supplies a portion of a grower’s production expenses upfront.

Some of the largest food clubs have more than 700 subscribers, and many of the programs regularly invite members to take part in life on the farm through tours, potluck dinners and cooking classes.

“It’s like Christmas each time a package arrives,” said Jo Tarantino, a 70-something grandmother who gets weekly produce deliveries at her La Crescenta home via UPS through a Fresno food club.

“The food is absolutely awesome -- I mean a carrot really tastes like a carrot,” she said. “It’s picked one day and you get it the next. You can’t beat that.”

The prices are pretty good, too. Researchers have found that customers generally pay less for produce through subscription programs than they would at supermarkets or organic food stores because there is no middleman.

Still, the food clubs are not for everyone.

Selection is limited to what is grown seasonally on any particular farm. In addition, some customers complain that they receive more produce than they can consume and that they often get stuck with food they don’t like or can’t use.

At Tierra Miguel Foundation Farm in San Diego County, manager Robert Farmer said he conducts twice-annual surveys to determine what consumers want and tracks turnover to find out why customers drop out.

“That’s one of the good things about [the subscription program], customers have an active role in deciding how it runs,” Farmer said.

The trend comes at a time when corporate growers have moved into the fast-growing organic industry, forcing some family farmers to shift to direct-marketing strategies.

But, at least in part, it is also a component of a larger movement aimed at changing America’s relationship with food and farming -- in essence forging personal ties between environmentally conscious growers and consumers.

“It’s really a philosophy of life,” said Karrie Stevens, program director for the Davis-based Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

“Most [farmers] see it as an opportunity to make a connection with their customers,” she added. “It’s one thing the big guys can’t do. And that’s the only way that small- and medium-scale farmers are going to make it in the California market.”

It’s an approach that Willey and his wife, Denesse, embraced late last year at their 75-acre farm near Madera.

Although most of their business has come by word of mouth, they have also promoted their enterprise at special events and through brochures placed at local wineries and restaurants.

The pitch won over Sherri Lewis, who drives 30 miles each week from the Sierra foothill community of Tollhouse to retrieve her produce in Fresno.

“We want to support our small farmers,” said Lewis, who arrived at a vitamin store recently with her three daughters in tow for her weekly pickup.

“I don’t believe in using pesticides or chemicals -- it’s bad enough we have to breathe it, we shouldn’t have to eat it,” Lewis said. “I wish all farmers would be this conscientious.”

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On a delivery route that takes him from the exclusive subdivisions of San Juan Capistrano to the edge of inner-city Long Beach, 46-year-old farmer Mil Krecu basks in the aroma of basil and soaks in the scent of sweet onions.

“I wasn’t really looking for a driving job,” said Krecu, who racks up more than 500 miles a week making deliveries in a big blue pickup better suited for a rutted road than an urban freeway. “But you’ve got to get your produce to the people who are supporting you or you’re not going to make it.”

Krecu is a founding board member of the Tierra Miguel Foundation Farm, a nonprofit organic venture launched in early 2000 on 85 acres in San Diego County’s Pauma Valley.

About 80% of the farm’s revenue is generated by its community-supported agriculture program, with produce trucked each week to distribution points in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties for 260 subscribers.

About half of those customers are in Los Angeles County, living along a route that takes Krecu and other drivers two days and 18 stops to complete.

Customers pay $111 a month for a small assortment of produce, $133 for a large.

There is little advertising involved; most subscribers sign up after learning about the service from someone else.

“I love that they are organic and I love supporting anything that doesn’t harm the planet,” said Joiline Hardman, whose Montecito Heights home near downtown Los Angeles serves as a drop-off site for 10 of Tierra Miguel’s produce boxes.

After learning about the food clubs on public radio, the mother of three searched for years for one to join before stumbling upon Tierra Miguel a couple of years ago. She has since spurred others to sign up.

“I really trust what they do and I get to support the farm directly,” Hardman said. “They can count on me and I can count on them.”

What customers can count on each week depends on the weather and what is in season.

For Krecu’s recent trek, his truck was loaded with lemons and oranges, strawberries and Swiss chard, red potatoes, cucumbers and carrots.

The veritable salad was picked the previous afternoon, cooled overnight and packed into boxes shortly after sunrise on delivery day, ensuring that it would travel from farm to family within 24 hours.

“It can’t get any fresher unless you pick it yourself,” said Krecu, a construction inspector turned farmer, who by 10 a.m. is dropping off his third load of the day: 11 bags of veggies at the Waldorf School of Orange County in Costa Mesa.

He leaves the produce on a table in front of the school, stuffing into each bag a leaflet with a list of its contents and recommendations on how to put the week’s supply of arugula and zucchini to good use.

Subscribers will arrive throughout the day to retrieve their shares, making it the next best thing to home delivery.

“That’s why the [community-supported agriculture program] is so amazing, there is no way big competitors can compete in this market,” he said. “This is one of the few places where the little guy still has the advantage.”

The little guys need all the help they can get. While small farms remain the majority in organic agriculture, the biggest producers are the ones really cashing in on what has become the fastest-growing segment of the food industry.

The top 2% of California’s 2,100 organic growers generate half the organic produce sales, estimated at $450 million a year. Big growers also dominate distribution channels and shelf space at supermarkets and organic-food superstores.

The competition has forced small growers to find new ways to survive.

“It can work if you stay modest in scope and don’t try to conquer the world,” said Ojai Valley farmer Steve Sprinkel, who runs an organic restaurant and store, and recently launched a small food club in his community.

“It’s a consequence of the [fast-growing] marketplace,” he said of the squeeze on the small farmer. “You can complain about it if you want, but it’s not going to go away.”

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With shopping centers on one side and subdivisions on the others, Fairview Gardens is surrounded.

Yet the organic farm near Santa Barbara keeps pumping out produce, bursting this summer with French filet beans, four kinds of beets and skin-blemished, but very sweet, apricots.

Fairview launched one of the first community-supported agriculture programs on the West Coast in 1988, a time when such ventures were still rare. It started with about 30 subscribers. Today, 130 families take part and there is a waiting list to join up.

Unlike most programs, subscribers pick up their produce at the farm, where the tractor runs on recycled cooking oil and the office is a tepee-like structure known as a yurt.

Farm co-manager Michael Ableman likes his subscribers to see for themselves how this 12-acre urban garden has kept development at arm’s length.People should know who grows their food, he said. Farmers should know who they are feeding. And children should know that their food comes from the soil, not the supermarket.

“I think there is something that happens in this kind of exchange that never happens down the sterile aisles of the supermarket,” Ableman said. “There’s a sense of the land, and its health and well-being. This is such a brief, passing moment in the lives of busy urban people, yet such a powerful one.”

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For more information on community-supported agriculture or to find a food club in your area, contact the Community Alliance with Family Farmers at www.caff.org.