03-14-1994 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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ill Conunon Harvest Faipti gro^vjkoi of a common concQ^i^or tU.cuin M ... _ _ ^ ^ « « ji GArdn 'Hie Slrire Tale family of Wayzou lat down lo diiifior and en|oyed new poca* toot, cvcunbert and an eggplant rat- sor^ aU vofHabWf piekod the very day they am them. But dm Taiaf didst grrw the vegeuhlet is dmir backyar-^ ihey don’t have the space. Nor dM they buy them at a roadtide fUnd. The froth load as their table casm horn the Coassaa Harvett farm on Water town Rd« weet of Long Lake. It was planted cultivated and cared Im by their Carroer, Dan Guenthner. The Tates, who have purchased a hill share (providing for a family of foui) in the crops raised at the Gomroon Harvest Farm, will receive a bag of fresh vegeublet once a week for 20 weeks. They are one of 85 householdt tn Minneapolis who refer to Dan Gueath- ner as “our farmer ** Sixteen other subecnber families rr side in the readership area of this news paper. and they are all beguining to think about the food they eat in a different way. They want to s upport a program that pro> mises them fresher food than they could buy at any market, at lower prices, and they want to know the food has been raised organically and locally. Many of the families ttroagiy feel the need to be involved in the production of the food by gouig to the fields to see what is growing helping pick and pack their produce, and personally supporting theu* farmer and hit staff of five. They want more than a "subtle conaectiofr to their envi ronment Although the Common HarvestFarmis the only one tn this ares (the closest similar fbim is in Osceola, Wisconsin), the idea of a subscriber farm is not new. Japan and Switzerland have been doing this form of agnculture for years. Thirty years ago in Japan, coocemed citizens formed “buying groups,** went directly to a farmer, and used this interesting ap proach to consumerism that is now hap pening at Harvest Farm Here in the United States, this t>*pe of farm is very prevalent in the northeast ern sutes, where it first begarL Now iifs cropping up on the west coast where Californians refer to the food raised as “y^Ppy chow.** Farmer .Guenthner feels that here in -fl V. r lirTic Ihoi 40 She food Minnesouas eot ia imMucod oiK the gioeery hands the damg before you if we peueerv e **Thairs svefuge for s piece of smd Guenthner, “and ike ssnm^JrMt/if food produced here ~ Si jm^lnvels a shorter distance diOoe sm sets of hands ^ What Guenthner says he is resUy tify> ing to esublish at the Commoci Harvest Farm is relations hips--the relationship of people to la.sd, people to food* and people to the food of the land Asifaggie Michaelson, coordinator of the weekly fbod packing and di&tnbution, explains k, "It IS hard for people to get involved or be concerned about their env-ironmeni if NtSTj. '^Hfijj^ummer lor the Harreal Famk one that- has ^seen im subnenbera double to number. [ with 108 people turned owiy as potenual , aistpnnm Asked it bn planned to ex- ^|mnd and put more of the lYi^ree he ^rmda on Watertown Rd. into vegetables nest eeBeei^ Gutmhper said be does pten to cultNbte and^lant more of the land and to add^^out 50 familiea to his subscribeeilat ^ But Guenthner believes kn the "econo* micf of scale." He would rather see sev* eral other small subsenption farms start up than lo make his own much bigger. By keeping the farm small in sue and Umiiing the number of subscribers he serves, Guenthner and Michaelson see s chance to make sura ifs not.^yuppy chow" they ar^ growing They want their subtenbers In bn participants, not spec* tstors. About 25 percent of the sub* scribers tmw come out to the jtarro and they have no connecting link." She feels this chance to see what goes into the growing process^the work tn pUncing and harvesting, the dependence on the weather, the sharing of the bounty—will provide them that tinkgge “There are a lot of clo«et gardeners out there,“ Michaelson beUeves, people who dream of someday having that piece of land and growing their own food. They don't realize they can have that now. if not in their own backyard, then somewhere else, if they will uke the time to get in* volved in the process. “W’e’re not that far away from our root5,“ said Michaelson, “or those days when our grandparents raised most of their own food." When 1 related that my grandpareots To Page 17 3 htlpL They would Uke to raise that per centage They want to make the farm a gathering place for Sunday picnics or work*day potlucks. They had one such gathering in June and hope to have more sooa , Michaelson would tte to see s child ren's plot plantod naSiyaaf where kids . could have a paglJIg gfoaMpg frtB crops such M goui^"|mpkina“aiid Indian com. GuentUidr envislonS*a "demon stration garden," where folks could learn how to pl^nt their own backyard plots, something ha encourages his subscrib ers to do so they dpu't get hooked on the “TU let my farmer do it aU for me" idea. About 20 different vegetables are grown at Common Harvest Fami,*ahd each week 85 bags of fresh produce are picked up at the six drop-off poinu by the subscnberfamiliet. Each family sends a cloth reusable bag with their name on it to the farm, where it is ftOed by helpers with whatever produce is svailable at that tune Recently, it was summer squash, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, eggplant and cabbage. Meanwhile. 17 famiUes in the Lake Minnetonka area who have decided they want tc “get back to the basics’* and relate to the land and the food they eat, are expenencmg what it is to be part of a “new economic model" as Michaelson puts It—the Common Harvest Farm.