Conscious Choice: Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer

May 2002

Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer

Volunteer at a local farm and experience the intimate connection between person and plant.

by Nicole Magistro

The sun is setting without the brilliant hues I expected out here, and muffled thunder signifies a storm descending from the north. I figure the rain is my punishment for arriving late to this small farm, some sort of cosmic wrath I would have to endure in addition to baling hay or spreading compost. The latter two I don’t mind; I expected them when I volunteered to help out for the weekend. But pitching a tent in the rain is not part of my plan, and I scurry to find someone to help me.

A 24-year-old woman named Jenny meets me in the yard, nestled between a large white barn with a curved red roof and a farmhouse painted the bright colors of the sunset I’d hoped to see — tangerine orange, with accents in aqua and peacock purple. The bright house glows in harmony with the tones in the yard, which is bordered by a large kitchen garden. Four o’clocks, fuzzy lambs’ ear, and ageratum wave at the kitchen window. Purple clematis, with explosions of yellow at their centers, climb up the old ribs of a chicken coop across the drive.

I had signed up as a shareholder as soon as I learned from a friend about Angelic Organics. The farm, located near Caledonia, Illinois, is the nation’s largest in a movement known as community supported agriculture (CSA). The CSA subscription system, which began in Japan thirty years ago, is increasingly popular among Chicagoans, who buy "shares" of a farm’s produce at the beginning of each harvest season. The financial commitment by shareholders is a welcome certainty for farmers, whose crops are at the mercy of Mother Nature.

"Nature provides no guarantees — we can’t offer any either," Angelic Organic’s leaflet warns. But in exchange for accepting the vicissitudes of nature, shareholders almost always receive three quarters of a bushel of organic, biodynamic vegetables and herbs, delivered to a drop-off site in their neighborhood. And the price is right — $330 for twelve weeks, or $480 for twenty weeks. Freshness and incredible taste aside, it’s a bargain.

In 1990, Angelic Organics was the only farm in Illinois with faith enough to try CSA. Most wondered whether the model could sustain itself on a large scale. But today, community supported farms have taken a firm hold in the state’s most fertile soil. Six such farms serve all of the major cities. Three of them — Angelic Organics, Buff Rock Farm, and Prairie Crossing Community Farm — help feed Chicago and its suburbs, with 1,280 total shares sold last year. Angelic Organics is the clear leader, with 980 shares ensuring the farm’s economic security. "I don’t know how we got through 1995 and 1996. They were crazy, hard years," says office manager Bob Bower. "It is a struggle for CSA farms. But as we’ve grown, things have gotten easier."

It takes two hours to drive from Chicago to Angelic Organics, which was formerly a dairy farm. John Peterson inherited the place from his father and his father’s father. He sold the cows in 1969 and raised some pigs and soybeans until the farm nearly collapsed in 1983, dwindling from 186 acres down to 22.

Peterson, who is sometimes called Farmer John, had been traveling, writing, and acting quite a bit. He had abandoned farming except for a few patches of pumpkins every fall. Mostly, he used the place for entertainment. There was plenty of room at the farm for shooting films and throwing parties for people who had never before stepped foot in Boone County. Of course, rumors began to stir about the comings and goings at Peterson Farm. Wild stories of Satan worship and drug running swirled about the farm. Neighbors estranged themselves. Children were scared of the place. And with the farm in decline, Peterson was hard up for cash.

During this time of transition, though, he discovered the writings of Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education and biodynamic farming. Steiner’s agricultural practice is something like homeopathic treatment for farms. According to Peterson, biodynamic farming leads to a natural balance of human, plant, and animal elements on a farm.

Entranced with the philosophy, Peterson sold off his equipment and tractors to help pay the bills on the farm. He rented out his house for extra income and moved into the barn. Then he began preparing the way for the varied and prismatic acres that contrast with the endless acres of corn nearby and resemble nothing so much as an exuberant backyard garden.

After a balmy night’s rest, I head to the kitchen where I meet an intern named Robin. She leads me, half asleep, up a dirt footpath through knee-high weed and large patches of horse manure. We duck under two different deer fences — electric wires so thin they almost disappear when I look at them — and enter a small shelter inhabited by a coffee-colored goat with bulging yellow eyes.

The goat’s pupils are black horizontal bars floating in a glowing orb, a golden marble. She climbs onto a red milking station and willingly pushes her head through a space that makes me think of a guillotine. Chivita, a name that means "little goat" in Spanish, munches on a grain mixture as Robin squeezes warm milk from her full udders. Her forefinger and thumb grip the goat’s nipples like a tourniquet and her other fingers press down in a cascade as the milk shoots into the pail. "I find the most creative energy in my own motions," Robin says.

I had been wondering what this 23-year-old woman with spiky blonde hair and sterling silver jewelry was doing as a farmhand. Robin should be putting on art shows or singing in a punk band. Her round belly protrudes from her cobalt blue linen pants and mauve tank top, and I can see her navy blue satin underwear in the back, where the weight of a two-way radio pulls at her pants. She tells me she speaks five languages and designs clothes influenced by trips to Thailand, Mexico, and Europe. She came to the farm after meeting John, who was a friend of a romantic friend.

Farmer John Peterson is a creative leader, Robin tells me. And I have to agree his life seems romantic; in the summer, he farms among artists and others who find fecundity in the soil. In the winter, he moves to Mexico and writes. Certainly, he is not a typical Boone County farm boy.

At 52 years old, his blue eyes sparkle behind fashionable, wire-rimmed glasses. He wears a wide brimmed straw hat and jeans, but his shirt is two parts Abercrombie, one part Orvis. An open pack of Swisher Sweets protrudes from the breast pocket. He doesn’t smoke them but gnaws on the end of one when he relaxes after a meal. He speaks eloquently, telling tales that often end with a philosophical question or roaring laughter.

His hands are a cipher. Despite a lifetime of farm work, they are smooth, without calluses or scars. "I’m no good at things with my hands," he tells six of us crouching in the morning sun to weed the carrots. "If I could do one thing all day, I’d ride a tractor."

It’s a utopian setting, but at base, the farm is also a business — one that produces quality vegetables for city dwellers. Most of them will have little more to do with the farm than write a check and pick up their box every week. Farmer John and the Angelic crew are slightly bemused by that consumer mentality, but they realize the shareholders’ financial commitment is what keeps the farm operating. It takes $1,000 a day to run the farm, Peterson says. That is more than two twenty-week customers for every day, even in February.

Last year, Angelic Organics achieved for the first time the security of having that money. "We’re around to stay, but it’s still an effort. It’s not a cash cow, as they say," Bob Bower says wryly. He has been with the farm eight seasons. He says there is a constant need for improving infrastructure like barn roofs and machinery sheds. But that’s just life. It’s not beating anyone down.

Inside the packing barn, downstairs from the loft where Peterson used to live, a dozen workers have gathered for what is a twice-weekly endurance event: we will pack more than 400 boxes for shareholders, each of whom anticipate three quarters of a bushel of fresh produce the next day. It’s a two-hour parade of cardboard boxes traveling up a conveyor belt and into a white, refrigerated truck. As with any assembly line, we’re all given duties: I’ll be placing four or five cucumbers in the lower right hand corner of each box, directly across from a head of cabbage the size of a soccer ball. Next to the cucumbers, Jenny will drop in two zucchini and two summer squash. Then someone will add a few beets. A head of lettuce and some scallions, a bag of basil and some licorice-scented anise hyssop will top off the box, which is neatly closed and sent like a soldier marching into the back of the truck.

"Who’s ready for a packing line yoga session?" Robin asks with a smile. It’s a ritual. We have to. Clasping her hands under her chin, Robin inhales and pushes her elbows together. We do the same. Following her lead, we draw elbows apart and upward. We all breathe out in a simultaneous sigh.

Moises, one of the hands who wears a ball cap and a shirt unbuttoned to his waist, switches on the conveyor belt. John Lennon ignites stereo speakers hidden in the corner with "Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band," and the bearings that churn the black rubber belt rattle in time with the music.

I lean over every ten seconds for a handful of cucumbers, trying to pick out a variety of small and large ones so no shareholder gets cheated. Grabbing two in each hand, I place them in the box and then bend down to get a handle on four more. I watch Moises out of the corner of my eye to judge when he will fold the next box and toss it up onto the belt. His eyes are set straight on the line, flanked on both sides by singing, whooping farm hands dancing to Beatles tunes.

Jenny falters just once, dropping a vegetable and letting out a squeal. Moises slows his pace, almost unnoticeably. Her chestnut eyes and freckles look to the end of the line and her lips pronounce gracias without a sound.

Two hours and two CDs later, the last box — taped with a blue sign that signals the end — moves slowly toward the truck. I wipe my forehead, and before I am finished loading leftover cucumbers into buckets, the packing barn is empty except for Raul, who is sweeping up the broken leaves and scraps of the lively parade.

For shareholders who never volunteer to work on the farm, the joys of a good harvest come in four-ounce bags of basil, heads of lettuce that resemble reef coral, and purple cabbages the size and weight of bowling balls. That’s not bad. But I as I ride out into the fields in the back of an old orange pickup truck, I think maybe the hands have it better. Imagine yourself alone among 4,000 cucumbers. Or standing alongside a 200-yard bed of potatoes. Or presiding over 176 pounds of freshly cut basil falling dewy out of orange crates into the giddy air.

I’ve been harvesting the basil. Now we’re back in the barn, and the basil’s heady scent wafts over the five-by-nine-foot bagging table. A crowd gathers. Moises stands with his weight balancing on his right foot, a smile floating on his face like clean laundry on the line. His nose pinches right below the bridge from the sheer depth of his breath as he inhales. He looks to Jenny, who is running her fingers over the basil, now about twelve inches thick on the table. "This needs to be dry before we bag it," she says, her voice sounding hypnotized. Bob magically pulls out an industrial-size fan on a steel pole and plugs it in. The whirring fan spreads the intoxicating fumes out the barn doors to the hands outside counting crateloads of zucchini. The leaves on each stalk blow like treetops in the breeze, and I cannot keep myself from stroking the smooth green leaves.

I want to wade in the heap. I want to let the stems tickle the tops of my feet and my ankles. I want to lie in the mound and nap there like Dorothy in the pasture of poppies. I let myself pretend it’s mine. I gaze past the rows of vegetables and into the sky, heavy with water and buzzing with gnats. I think about the spiky, yet delicate zucchini stems we will clip in order to harvest the squash. I experience the real gratitude of those who constantly, repeatedly, take the life of one living thing in order to sustain something or someone else. Maybe, I think, it is that intimate connection between person and plant that makes it clear when it is the right time to harvest. Maybe that’s what it means to be a farmer.

CSA Learning Center provides opportunities

Imagine a gang member milking a goat. Or a child from Pilsen selling organic peppers from a cart. These scenes might seem like paradoxes, but for hundreds of youth every year they are opportunities to explore farming and community supported agriculture (CSA) at Angelic Organics.

"This place can transform someone’s spirit," says Tom Spaulding, director of the CSA Learning Center, a non-profit organization that is committed to providing new experiences for the urban community that the farm serves.

The following programs bring organic produce into the kitchens of low-income groups:

Food Security Harvest Shares: Fifty low-income families each year receive affordable organic produce and on-farm workshops through donations from shareholders and community churches. Spaulding hopes to offer more than one hundred families discounted shares by 2003.

The Chile Project, co-sponsored by Ecovida: A micro enterprise creates employment for a group of women and children living in Pilsen. They grow and harvest four types of peppers, including jalapeño and guajillo varieties, and then tie them into garlands called "ristras," which sell for $25.

The learning center also provides the following hands-on farm experiences:

Agro-Ecology Education: Youth and adult city dwellers visit the farm for custom learning sessions on a variety of topics.

Horticultural Therapy: Political refugees and survivors of torture, many of whom have abandoned rural homelands and are now adjusting to city life in the United States, are welcome at the farm.

Urban-Rural Connection: Rural immersion and leadership development experiences for adults and children.

Fun workshops for shareholders include: volunteer in the fields, cooking workshops, Girls and Farming, Native Planting Day.

For more information on CSA Learning Center visit www.csalearningcenter.org or www.angelicorganics.com.

Volunteer opportunities on local farms

Angelic Organics (serves Chicago and Rockford)
1547 Rockton Rd., Caledonia, IL 61011
815-389-2746
Best days are Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Biver Farms (Edwardsville and St. Louis)
7307 Pin Oak Rd., Edwardsville, IL 62025
618-656-9082
Best days are Wednesday and Thursday.

Buff Rock Farm (Chicago and suburbs)
1971 County Line Rd., Steward, IL 60553
815-384-5002
Best days are weekdays.

Henry’s Farm (Bloomington and Peoria)
1569 Sugar Hill Lane, Congerville, IL 61729
309-965-2304
Best days are weekdays.

Prairie Crossing Community Farm
(Chicago and suburbs)
32400 N. Harris Rd., Grayslake, IL 60030
847-548-4030
Best days are Tuesday and Friday.

Prairieland CSA (Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy)
PO Box 1404, Champaign, IL 61824
217-239-3686
Best days are weekdays.

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