Community support key for area farmers

Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons in Carrboro are a chance to see firsthand the changing face of farming.

Community Supported Agriculture is a growing trend for farmers and consumers.

CSAs operate by subscribers paying a fee at the beginning of the year and receive weekly packages of vegetables during the growing season.

Elise Margoles, owner of Elysian Fields Farm in Cedar Grove, listed half a dozen CSAs with booths at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market on Wednesday. Members for Margoles’ CSA sign up in November and pay by January.

Margoles said that there are new CSAs every year and that the waiting list for hers keeps getting longer.

“It creates a direct market between the farmer and the consumer,” she said.

Ray Christopher, who owns and operates Timberwood Organics in Efland, said the program has grown to 300 subscribers with more than 100 on the waiting list.

The yearly dues help give farmers a ready supply of capital at the beginning of the season.

“This works really well because we don’t have to get a loan in the spring,” said Joann Gallagher, who owns Castlemaine Farm in Liberty with her husband.

Christopher said one of the farmer’s benefits is not having to spend most of the season repaying debt.

“For the farmer, spring requires big capital,” he said.

Christopher said his farm, which uses biodiesel to fuel the tractors, deals with a lot more issues than conventional farms.

“Our main focus is the health of the soil and not necessarily cosmetic, but healthy food,” he said.

Picture-perfect vegetables are not the only thing CSA farmers have moved away from.

Many locally grown foods can’t compete with the prices at grocery stores, but Mike Lanier, who works in agricultural economic development for N.C. Cooperative Extension, said cost isn’t the only thing consumers are concerned about.

Lanier said many people are concerned by national food recalls and pesticides, which leads them to look into locally grown foods.

“People are looking for other qualities than price,” Lanier said.

The farmers, too, get more than just a paycheck.

“I really like the relationship I have with my customers,” Gallagher said. “They understand eating locally isn’t as convenient.”

Lanier said many CSA farmers find themselves better off than if they tried to sell on large markets. He said CSAs can have less risk and better pay for the farmer.

Lanier said that in 1990, farmers who sold on large markets received nine cents on average for every dollar spent by consumers on food.

“We know that farmers doing local foods, their profit is a lot higher than commodity farms,” he said.

Margoles said she’s comfortable with the size of her farm, and said she profited in other ways, as well.

“I think a nice thing about CSA is people get to try new vegetables,” she said. “And people learn where their food is coming from.”

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu.