BRATTLEBORO — “There's a misperception that lower-income people don't care about local food,” said Jesse Kayan, farmer and community service coordinator at the Westgate Housing Community. “But they just can't access it. I've learned everybody in this community understands [local food's] importance and value.”
At the Elliot Street Market Basket, which started on June 22, lower-income consumers often bypassed by the local and organic food movement connect with local farmers and produce.
Until Sept. 28, farmers from Hearts Bend Farm in Newfane, Amazing Planet! Farm and Justice Center in Williamsville, the SIT Farm in Brattleboro and organizers with Post Oil Solutions (POS) bring fresh produce to the Elliot Street Café parking lot.
“We're meeting around food but community is at the heart of it,” said Joshua Davis, an intern with POS, the organization behind the market.
The market basket is an example of community-supported agriculture (CSA) with a twist. The participating farmers are new to farming, cultivating smaller farms. The CSA is open to community members with income levels that quality them for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps.
The Elliot Street market sprang from a pilot CSA at Westgate, a tenant-led, 98-unit, affordable-housing complex in West Brattleboro near the Marlboro town line.
“We're feeling very positive about it [the market],” Angela Berkfield, an AmeriCorps Volunteer with POS who is in her second year with the CSA projects.
She said the market fits into POS' goal of building self-sufficient community and food security in a future society where oil is increasingly scarce or depleted.
The World Health Organization defines food security as “all people at all times [having] access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.”
Berkfield said the whole CSA project grew from wanting to improve access to local food for people whose income and experiences often limit their access.
Holding the market within a neighborhood aids access for people within the downtown community. The “basket style” CSA, where people come and collect the produce with their own bags allows farmers to charge wholesale prices.
At the market
On this Tuesday afternoon, a local musician plays guitar while more than 20 share-owners picking up their farm shares swap recipes. On a whiteboard, Berkfield lists the week's share, which includes broccoli, leafy greens, and herbs.
She said POS had connections with the farmers involved with the CSA prior to the project's start and knew they were looking for a market.
Getting the word out to the Elliot Street neighborhood and explaining what it meant to buy a farm share were two of the challenges POS faced said Davis.
Kayan's partner, Caitlin Burlett, of Heart's Bend Farm said she comes from a teaching family and entered farming with zero skills.
A summer college job turned her on to agriculture. With an apprenticeship at Picadilly Farm in Winchester, N.H., under her belt, she struck out on her own.
Burlett and Kayan don't own their farm; they work for their rent at Heart's Bend, a former summer camp.
They raise sheep and chickens on seven acres of pasture. They sell lamb, eggs and have a small farm stand at the bottom of their road. She said this is her first year selling produce from her quarter-acre garden.
She contemplated selling produce for a couple summers before joining the Market Basket.
Burlett said knowing who eats her food feels rewarding.
It “really took a load off” the farmers having another organization put the Market Basket together and find community members to fill the farm shares, she said.
“You don't get this kind of support very often,” she added about working with the other farmers and POS.
Jonathan “Slug” Crowell, who says he has “a background in social change,” has worked at Amazing Planet! for two years.
He said after “settling down” in Vermont he wanted work helping “defending food and local family farms.” According to him, the farmers at Amazing Planet! cultivate three-and-a-half acres and diversify their income selling produce, eggs, teaching workshops, summer camps, and agri-tourism.
“People organize for an eight-hour work day,” he said. “I just want eight hours of sleep.”
Learning from the land
The three farmers managing the 1½-acre SIT Farm - Steve Hed, Courtney Bauman, and Katherine Gillespie - till, transport water and harvest by hand.
Produce from the farm goes to the Elliot Street Market Basket, five SIT staff members with farm shares and a Friday on-campus farm stand.
Now in its second season, the goal behind the producer-teacher farm is to create a farming model farmers anywhere in the world can use. Many locations cannot support the large-scale industrial model followed by some American farmers.
Hed hopes students take their skills into their chosen “fields” after graduation.
“It's one thing to sit in an air conditioned classroom and study all this stuff,” he said, adding that working outside in the heat and rain teaches awareness.
“With agriculture, there's so many uncontrollable variables like weather and pests. It's extremely emotional,” said Hed.
He uses the example of Late Blight, which struck area tomato plants last summer. A farmer can spend all season cultivating a tomato crop worth $2,000, and see it destroyed within days, Hed said.
In this region, people have safety nets and food security, but Hed hopes students realize what it's like for people in areas without resources to fall back on.
“When you do the watering by hand, you're very aware of how much water you use,” said Bauman.
Bauman fell in love with farming during her time as a student working on the SIT Farm and stayed on to use the farm as the basis of her graduate practicum.
“I just didn't want to leave,” she said.
Bauman came to farming via international education and social justice. Sustainable agriculture and the local food movement aligned with her values.
“[Farming] is a way for me to do meaningful work and build my own skills,” she said.
Bauman grew up on a 100-head cattle ranch in rural Oklahoma but never wanted to learn farming. She said she didn't fully appreciate her family's farming knowledge and, perhaps, neither did they. She does think they're pleased she's learning the trade.
It's ironic, she said, that it took grad school to teach her what she could have learned at home.
Hed said no one at the farm earns a livable wage. Donations, grants and proceeds from produce sales pays his salary once the farm-related bills are paid.
POS Program Coordinator Katherine Gillespie receives an AmeriCorps stipend for her work, while Bauman's internship is unpaid.
Hed hopes this will change.
“[We're working toward] a fair return for the farmers,” said Gillespie.
She said in the normal chain of events, farmers send their crop to distributors, who pass it on to grocery stores to sell to the end customer. Farmers and consumers looking each other in the eye is not the normal relationship.
“[Relationships], that's sustainability,” she said.
Hed agrees, saying he knows of industrial farmers who won't eat their own crops. He eats what he produces and feels the Market Basket and other farmers markets or CSAs help consumers recognize the labor farmers put into their crops.
Davis said people with shares can pay for their produce on the day of pick up. In the future he hopes more will help provide the farmers with stable income by paying for their shares in advance.
Shares are still available for people who meet the income requirements. Contact Angela Berkfield at 248-904-8324 for more information or to sign up.
Davis said despite Elliot Street's recent notoriety, “there's also really good things going on.”