11. Community Supported Agriculture

By Bernard Jarman

This chapter explores the beginnings of community supported agriculture (CSA) and tackles key philosophical issues relating to the nature of both farming and society. A description given of the ‘intentional’ Camphill community model shows how it has provided inspiration for the developing CSA movement.

Community supported agriculture as a concept has been around for at least 30 years. My first contact was through Trauger Groh, author of Farms of Tomorrow¹ and pioneer of community supported agriculture. I worked as an apprentice at Buschberghof, Fuhlenhagen, the biodynamic farm in northern Germany which he co-founded during the early 1970s. The farm began as a partnership between three farming families. One of them had inherited the property and the others brought capital to it. It was all placed in a Trust whose objectives were to research biodynamic agriculture and its social context. Responsibility for the farm was shared between the three partners; one focused on the dairy herd and creamery, another on cereals and bread, a third on vegetables; overall responsibility was carried collectively. Customers from Hamburg came out to the farm to collect raw milk, quark, butter, bread and vegetables. This was the beginning of what has now become a successfully operating community supported farm. It developed in a region where there were several well-established biodynamic farms and a strong interest in discovering new and less egotistical social and economic structures—both crucial ingredients for developing a community farm capable of withstanding the tests of time.

The nature of a biodynamic farm

It is widely acknowledged that CSA finds particularly fertile soil on farms where biodynamic agriculture is practised. There is good reason for this. Biodynamic agriculture builds on a spiritual understanding of nature and the human being. This means that living processes and their interactions are considered, not just material substances. It also means that each organism, whether plant or animal, is seen as part of a wide and universal whole. Just as Goethe in his Metamorphosis of Plants showed that each part of the plant is a microcosm of the whole, so is a biodynamic farm conceived of as an organism and a microcosm of the whole earth. This leads to the fundamental concept of biodynamic agriculture formulated by Rudolf Steiner:

A farm is true to its essential nature ... if it is conceived of as a kind of individual entity in itself—a truly self-contained individuality. Every farm should aim to approach this goal as closely as possible—it can’t be completely attained—but a self-contained individuality should always be the aim. In practice this means that whatever is required for agricultural production should come from the farm itself, including of course in the farm the due amount of livestock.²

Such a ‘leading idea’ has enormous consequences for a farm operation because it encourages economic and ecological self-sufficiency. A strong internal cycle develops from soil to fodder to livestock and back to soil, as discussed in Chapter 3. This builds fertility and the stronger this cycle becomes the more is a farm able to produce surplus crops which can be sold off the farm without depleting fertility. It is this internal cycle which gives the farm individuality its strength and, ultimately, its ‘immune resistance’. The grass, the cows, their intestinal flora, the soil micro-organisms, adapt themselves ever more strongly to one another and gradually over time an individual identity begins to emerge that is unique and site-specific. It becomes in effect a living being with a biography (see also Chapter 9).

Caring for this living farm organism and making it productive is very different from an industrial process. Farming cannot be described as an industry since everything that is produced arises as a by-product of the farm’s internal cycle. Industrial products are created by transforming raw materials through a process, which necessarily reduces them quantitatively. So, for example, a large amount of wood must be cut away from a tree trunk and disposed of in order to create a finely crafted chair. Farm produce is very different. It is the result of a living process. One seed is planted and hundreds may be harvested from that one plant.

In this way the farmer cares for the whole farm by nurturing this individuality and enabling nature to offer the produce as a gift to humanity. This leads directly to the ideas behind community supported agriculture. A farm conceived as a living being is the foundation for a true community around a farm. Just as a healthy farm evolves out of its own resources, so can its ‘surplus’ provide for a community. The more diverse a farm becomes, the more it can fulfil this requirement—for example by providing fruit, herbs, eggs and even textiles as well as milk, vegetables and meat. Diversity benefits both farm and community.

Egoism or altruism in human relationships?

On the face of it, this sounds like self-sufficiency extended to a group of people. There is, however, a fundamental difference. The goal of self-sufficiency is to become independent of one’s fellows. Robinson Crusoe surviving on a desert island and providing for all his own needs is an idealized picture of this. It is a powerful image and one that underlies much of the thinking behind contemporary economics. It is taken further in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Woven into this story is her belief in the primacy of individualism, independence and capitalism—I will serve no man and let no man serve me is the motto formulated, and it found resonance particularly among those seeking to justify the free market in the face of encroaching state control and interference. Like the story of Robinson Crusoe, it provides a sense of freedom, individual independence and self-worth. Its fundamental flaw is that it is entirely self-centred and without compassion. It is this very thing that can make capitalism so destructive. A key economic driver identified by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations was that of self-interest and competition, as well as the concept of the ‘invisible hand’ which anonymously regulates supply and demand. It provides freedom to innovate, grow and develop but only by exploiting others and robbing the earth. A parallel is found in the biological sciences. Beginning with the idea of evolution as expressed in Darwin’s Origin of Species, a parallel theory identifies evolution’s driving force as ‘the survival of the fittest’.³

Another and quite different understanding is steadily gaining acceptance today. It is one that relates closely to the holistic principles behind biodynamic farming. Instead of competition being the driving force of evolution, a new ecological understanding of the world has been emerging. It came to prominence in 1970 with the publication by James Lovelock of The Gaia Hypothesis. He suggested that the whole earth is self-regulating and that all life forms act together with their environments within a single homeostatic system. This implies that each species exists not for its own sake but for the mutual benefit of the planet. Although a relatively mechanistic concept, this goes a long way towards recognizing the interdependence of life and challenges competition as being the sole driver of change. Just as the accepted theory of evolution appears to have translated into our current western economic system, attempts are now being made to replace this self-seeking economy with one based on mutual support and cooperation—a Gaian economy. This is the context within which CSAs belong. Instead of seeking to maximize personal gain, the gesture is one of service to humanity.

In keeping with this principle it can be readily understood that every person on this planet has a birthright to sufficient food, clothing and shelter to maintain him/her throughout life even with our ever-expanding human population. An anonymous proverb probably coined at the time of the enclosures says: ‘There was a time e’er England’s griefs began, when every rood of land maintained its man’. A rood was a quarter of an acre. If today the total cultivable area of Britain is divided by the total population, about one third of an acre is available per person. Naturally there are great regional variations in climate and soil fertility but this calculation provides a useful guideline for anyone wishing to provide members of a community supported farm with everything they need. Thus 100 acres (40 ha) of average English farmland should be able to provide for the needs of up to 300 people.⁴

Background and principles of the Camphill movement

The model for CSAs developed by Trauger Groh was partly inspired by experiences gained from the Camphill movement.⁵ Camphill is recognized for its work with people with special needs and for its innovative community life. It was founded in Scotland by Karl König, a far-sighted pioneering doctor who was forced to flee Nazi-controlled Austria in the late 1930s. König used his medical knowledge, the inspiration of Rudolf Steiner and extensive understanding of European cultural history to develop his ideas for a healthy community life. He recognized three semi-autonomous functional systems operating within the human organism:

•    The nerve-sense system extending throughout the body and having its main focus in the head, where the brain and most of the five senses are located.

•    The breathing and circulatory system, centred in the heart and lungs and which ensures that oxygen is transported throughout the organism via the bloodstream and exchanged with carbon dioxide.

•    The metabolic system in which food is digested and transformed, the primary location being in the abdomen.

These three systems—nerves, circulation and metabolism—exist in a dynamic balance with one another. Each one has a degree of autonomy and yet acts in harmony with, and complements, the other two.

During the period of global meltdown immediately after the First World War, Rudolf Steiner tried in every possible way to encourage those in positions of responsibility to develop a more enlightened approach to human social organization.⁶ He proposed that in place of the failed concept of a unitary nation state, in which human rights, individual initiative and economic interests continually collide and undermine one another, society should be reordered so that these elements have space to fulfil their true roles. Just as a farm can be conceived as a living, integrated organism formed as an image of the universe so too can a social organism be developed as an image of the threefold nature of the human being. This has become known as the ‘threefold social order’. Like the human organism, the body social is thus differentiated into three distinct functional areas:

•    Cultural and spiritual life. This includes all individual initiatives which thrive when ideas can unfold freely: education, medicine, agriculture and the arts.

•    Rights and the laws of society. These should apply equally to everyone. This is the sphere of the democratic state.

•    Economy, namely how we provide for, and meet, one another’s needs through production, distribution and consumption of commodities and services.

The principle for the cultural sphere, and for taking individual initiatives, is freedom. The principle for the rights sphere, the state, in which everyone should be equal before the law, is equality. In the economic sphere the guiding principle should be brotherhood. Freedom, equality and brotherhood are three great ideals of a Utopian society, and were those of the French Revolution. But they are also very practical, appropriate and no longer Utopian when applied to the three functional aspects of social life.

The three principles can also be harmful if exercised out of context, as for instance when the economy allows free reign to individual egoism rather than providing a brotherly service to the community, or when equality and uniformity places individual expression in a straitjacket, or again, when the state becomes a brotherhood of interest groups instead of promoting justice and equality. Careful differentiation between these three parts of society is essential and is acknowledged as a reality in today’s world. Thus it is essential for consultation to involve businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations. These three groups each have a distinct purpose and are representative of the three spheres of society—economy, rights and culture respectively.

In setting up Camphill, König worked with these ideas in a unique and practical way. Besides the guidance of Rudolf Steiner he was influenced by the ideals and achievements of great social reformers such as Amos Comenius (1592–1670), Ludwig Zinzendorf (1700–60) and the Welsh social reformer and industrialist Robert Owen (1771–1858). In his essay The Camphill Movement, Karl König describes how these personalities, in successive centuries, developed different community-building qualities which have had a lasting effect on European culture. Comenius brought the idea of universal learning as a cohesive social force. It led to the founding of Europe’s great universities and learned societies. Zinzendorf created Christian-based communities that welcomed all-comers equally, regardless of their faith or status. Owen brought the idea of an economy based on brotherhood and mutuality. This led to the founding of the Cooperative Movement whose first model community, as with the first Camphill, was established in Scotland.⁷ To these we may also add the contribution of William Morris (1834–96), English poet and socialist thinker who was a pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement. The latter has become an essential element of the provision of meaningful work within Camphill communities.

König also sought to disentangle unhealthy elements inherited from the unitary state concept, notably where land and labour became a commodity. His solution to the question of labour in particular became the hallmark of Camphill. No one is paid for their labour. Instead everyone works to serve the needs of the community as a volunteer. The community in turn provides everyone with their daily requirements. No one receives wages (see below) nor are there any personal financial incentives. Work is undertaken out of love for the task in hand. The Camphill system is a very specific interpretation of what Rudolf Steiner formulated as the fundamental social law:

In a community of human beings working together, the well-being of the community will be the greater, the less the individual claims the proceeds of the work he has done himself; i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow workers and the more his own requirements are satisfied not out of his own work done but out of work done by others. Every institution in a community of human beings that is contrary to this law will inevitably engender in some part of it, after a while, suffering and want. It is a fundamental law which holds good for all social life with the same absoluteness and necessity as any law of nature within a particular field of natural causation.

How then does the farm fit into all this? Farmers work with nature. They learn to understand and recognize her imperatives. They want to produce food. They care for the land, the animals and the plants, and then if they are successful nature provides the goods. This, as explained above, is different from any industry, and hence it is wrong to speak of farming as an industry. Farmers are artists and craftsmen and have a role not dissimilar to that of the conductor of an orchestra. The farmer needs to know the right moment to plough a field, graze a pasture or sow seeds. He needs to sense when to engage each aspect of the farm individuality so as to achieve a harmony of life. Farming rightfully belongs to the sphere of free cultural activity. It is not in the first place an economic activity, although those who farm, still need to make a living. The reality is that so long as the crops are in the ground they are not yet commodities. Grains, vegetables or milk only become commodities and enter the economic domain once they have been harvested. Before that they are bound up as part of nature.

Many Camphill communities have sought to reflect this in the way they handle produce from the land. Land payment systems have been set up whereby the community makes a collective payment to cover the external costs of running the farm (purchases, insurance, etc.) but not the vegetables or milk produced. These are received as gifts from the farm and are distributed freely. Within an ‘intentional’ community like Camphill an opportunity clearly exists for allowing a farm to function in this way.⁸ Trauger Groh and others round him then asked whether such a system could be adapted and applied to a more loosely connected group of people living independent lives rather than in an enclosed community. In this way the idea of community supported agriculture was born.

Community supported agriculture—a theme with variations

How community supported farms have been created varies considerably, as does the way they budget their costs. In the North American model the following procedure is common. First a detailed budget is put together by the farm group. Once budgeting has been done, a meeting is arranged for all farm community members. This usually takes place over a whole day and is like a little festival. The farm year is reviewed and plans for the coming season are shared. The farm management group then presents the budget. Every detail can be questioned. At the end of the process the members agree the budget. Having done so, they must find a way of meeting all the agreed costs through their collective contributions. This process is best described as ‘auctioning the budget’. On the basis of a rough guideline (budget divided by members) each person pledges to pay a certain sum within the framework of what is individually affordable. There are no fixed pledges (shares). This makes it possible for those on low incomes to pay less and, more importantly, allows those who can to pay more. If on the first round the total pledges do not cover the budget, a further round of pledges is made until the budget is met. Expenditure may also be reduced. This system works well as the commitment is for one year only. Payments are then usually made by monthly standing order. In the USA, where the movement has gained considerable momentum and where there are now over 1000 CSA farms, a specific form has been adopted along the above lines, although in many cases confined to vegetables. In regions with a long winter, this has meant closing down for about four months.

In the UK, until recently no functioning examples of the above kind were to be found. Here, the concept of CSA covers a spectrum ranging from local food initiatives such as farmers markets and box schemes to farms supported by surrounding communities, to ‘intentional communities’ such as Camphill. CSA is thus defined as a partnership between farmers and consumers, where the responsibilities and rewards of farming are shared. This broad spectrum of local food initiatives was recently recognized in the Soil Association sponsored project ‘Cultivating Communities’.⁹

A British example of a full community supported farm is Stroud Community Agriculture (SCA), a biodynamic farm close to Stroud, in Gloucestershire.¹⁰ From a modest beginning in a walled garden it grew during the following six years into a farm with around 48 acres located on two different sites. It is structured as a cooperative (Industrial Provident Society), now with 180 members (200 is the maximum). Each member has one vote, pays £24 per year, receives a quarterly newsletter and can register for a vegetable share. Currently (2009) this costs £33. Payment is made monthly by standing order. There is a set allocation of vegetables per share each week, which is collected either from the farm or from drop-off points in nearby towns. Members also have access to meat, which can be purchased from the farm. Regular farm days take place each month and members can join in activities, help on the farm and have fun. A number of objectives were formulated early on and are written into a constitution. These are to:

•    Support organic and biodynamic agriculture

•    Pioneer a new economic model based on mutual benefit and shared risk ensuring the farmers have a decent livelihood

•    Be fully inclusive—low income shall not exclude anyone

•    Encourage practical involvement on all levels

•    Be transparent in all affairs; make decisions by consensus and strive for social justice

•    Offer opportunities for learning, therapy and reconnecting with the life of the earth

•    Network with others to promote community supported agriculture and to share experience

•    In cooperation with the farmers, encourage members to use the farm for individual and social activities and celebrations

•    Develop a non-exclusive sense of community round the farm

Operating on a different basis is Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch Community Farms in Sussex.¹¹ Here, all produce is purchased through farm shops and members are not required to carry the running costs by subscription. Yet it is a vibrant farm community with considerable outreach. Faced with the threat of closure in the early 1990s, a large number of individual supporters rallied round, formed a co-op and raised funds to purchase the assets of Tablehurst Farm. This was facilitated at the time by issuing £100 shares. The land and buildings were subsequently transferred to St Anthony’s Trust which already owned Plaw Hatch Farm. The co-op is made up of local supporters and customers and, as with the Stroud Community, the members elect a carrying group which decides overall policy on their behalf. The farm teams carry out day-to-day management of the farm within a ‘company’ which is wholly owned by the co-op. Supporters continue to help raise funds for farm development by purchasing further shares while the co-op also attracts larger donations.

In tracing the origins of such developments in different situations, one observes that initiatives must be met by a receptive human environment. Thus, the Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch development undoubtedly had its precursor in the 1970s when the Anderson family ran Busses Farm as a social enterprise, leading in turn to the establishment of The Seasons cooperative shop in Forest Row. Thus a generation who had experienced the success of former initiatives became willing and committed participants in a later vision for a community farm venture.

In a similar way Stroud Community Agriculture has had a long ‘prenatal’ history. The two estates currently managed by SCA belong to Hawkwood College and Wynstones School, both strongly connected to one another since the 1940s. The site at Brookthorpe (near Wynstones) used to be run as a productive smallholding serving the needs of Wynstones hostel. The first attempt at starting a CSA occurred in the 1980s. Oaklands Park, a Camphill initiative on the opposite side of the river Severn, had recently been established and, with it, a large horticultural operation. Since the main interest in biodynamic vegetables at that time came from Wynstones, it seemed natural for Oaklands and Wynstones to link up to supply vegetables. They sought to pioneer a land payment system similar to that operating in Camphills. While this original idea had to be abandoned, a second attempt in the 1990s established Kolisko Farm on the Brookthorpe site. Its objectives were to create a biodynamic farm that could integrate agriculture, medicine and education as espoused by the Koliskos in their book Agriculture of Tomorrow. After some ten years it became necessary to dissolve this operation, but with these seeds the present SCA was able to start growing.

Securing land for biodynamic farms

Both land and labour are treated today as if they were commodities to be bought and sold on a par with products and services. According to Rudolf Steiner and many other thinkers too, this distorts the economy and causes a lot of misery. Buying and selling human beings constitutes slavery and is no longer permitted. Buying and selling human labour involves trading part of a human being and is therefore partial slavery. Similarly, freehold rights and the possibility to buy and sell land as a commodity for industrial and housing development create unreal and inflated prices, leading to a serious distortion of the agricultural economy and rendering land inaccessible to young farmers. Opportunities for speculation likewise mean that there are fewer farm tenancies available.

The way forward must therefore be to find ways of freeing the land and making it available for those who can, and wish, to work it. Farming is for the long term and it is essential that farmers are granted a lifelong security of tenure, or for as long as they feel able to farm. It is also vital that land can be held in perpetuity for agricultural purposes, and even that it should be managed biodynamically—a scenario which of course also presupposes the availability of sufficient biodynamic farmers. The example of Tablehurst and Plaw Hatch Community Farm offers a good example of how an educational trust (St Anthony’s in this case) can hold land in perpetuity for the benefit of biodynamic agriculture. There are other similar trusts operating across the country. Almost without exception these are educational trusts and there is always the danger that educational objectives override those of agriculture. This is most clearly seen where an educational establishment owns the land but lacks sensitivity towards the farming. Rare are charitable trusts established with agriculture as the primary purpose—indeed charity law makes this hard to justify.

A Community Land Trust (CLT) is another legal structure for holding land. It differs in that it is a co-operative rather than a charitable trust. The best known example of a CLT is that of Fordhall Farm, an organic farm that was purchased by a large number of supporters each of whom bought a stake in the farm in the form of shares.¹² One advantage of a CLT over a charitable trust is that the local community guarantees its continuity rather than a group of nominated trustees. Unlike an educational trust, it is not bound by an educational objective. Its purpose is simply to hold land in trust for as long as required by the community and its different stakeholders. Such community ownership also helps to build local ties and weave greater identification with the land.

Whether land is held in a CLT or in a more traditional charitable trust, an important objective is fulfilled, namely that the land can no longer be used as a speculative asset. Arriving at the point where land can be held in a neutral form of ownership structure requires either that land is gifted to a trust or is purchased on the open market with a large amount of gifted capital. The Biodynamic Land Fund¹³ has recently been established to raise funds in order to purchase such land and hold it in perpetuity for the benefit of biodynamic agriculture.

A concluding note

More and more people are realizing that it is no longer responsible either for human health or the environment to rely on chemically grown food, or food which has been imported at huge cost in terms of energy and livelihoods. Testimony to this growing awareness is the growth of the Transition Town movement in which local people have come together in order to pioneer (or return to) more local and environmentally sustainable lifestyles.¹⁴ Its purpose is to make a transition from profligate consumerism, requiring constant economic growth, to a stable and self-reliant economy. It is interesting to reflect that, although quite ‘new’ for modern culture, historically this was the way the vast majority of non-urban dwellers interacted with each other for centuries.

Community supported agriculture, however composed, is a most effective way to re-localize our food economy and address key issues such as that of food poverty. Although individual share payments to an average CSA may be higher than simple box schemes, in the long run it is one of the most cost-effective ways of obtaining fresh biodynamic food. Comparisons between a typical CSA share and a similar range of produce purchased in a supermarket repeatedly show CSA shares as offering value for money.

It is also not just the price of specific produce that affects or ameliorates food poverty but the way we relate to and source our food. Using fresh, seasonal farm produce requires a change in attitude and cooking habits. A reduction in the use of tinned, frozen or processed food (which is also expensive) in favour of what can be obtained from the farm, benefits not only personal health and the environment but also the pocket. Care of the earth, healthy eating and good housekeeping go hand in hand (see Chapter 12). By participating in community supported farm initiatives, real and lasting social changes can be encouraged.