Community Supported Agriculture Takes Root in Los Angeles
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, shouts and laughter echo from the schoolyard at Rio Vista Elementary in North Hollywood. In the front of the school, boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables are sprawled along a folding table, crammed underneath and lined up against the wall. Volunteers Lisa Mann and Marion Fregeolle organize the overflowing boxes of crimson strawberries, golden tangerines and crisp red lettuce for the crush of afternoon patrons of CSA California.
“There are a lot of favorites here today,” said Fregeolle. “The strawberries especially, they are so ripe, and people are excited about the escarole too.”
CSA California is only one of a handful of organizations dedicated to giving consumers a chance to get the freshest produce sourced from local, organic and sustainable farms. CSA or community supported agriculture, where consumers would buy a “share” of a farm’s produce. This has evolved in Los Angeles, where residents are looking for ways to get the best produce, without breaking the bank and keeping an eye on their ecological impacts.
“Whatever we do, we carefully source the products,” said CSA California founder Sara Paul. “We’ve really done our research; you have to really know your farm.”
Although CSA California is just over two years old, the organization has spread via word-of-mouth , now serving between 250 to 300 consumers a week. For $25 a bag, you get 12-15 items and can choose to get a bag each week or every other week at one of the dozen central pick-up locations.
Jennifer Bastian, a mother of three from Burbank, is one of the first to arrive, with her 5-year-old son, Quint in tow. She holds out her reusable blue bag as Fregeolle doles out her bounty of produce.
“You get a pound and a half of tangerines, two pounds of red potatoes and a bunch of carrots, golden beets…,” Fregeolle explains placing each item in Bastian’s bag. An addition of kale, joi choi, escarole, red lettuce, green onions and a carton of strawberries leave Bastian’s two bags overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables.
“It’s definitely helping the health of my family,” Bastian said. “My husband hates vegetables, but we’re trying new things and learning that we do like them. I discovered that I like kale, but I never had it before this.”
Lisa Beebe, a local writer walks her dog to the pickup, stopping to gaze at the red potatoes.
“Oh, those are pretty,” said Beebee. “Maybe I will use these today,” she said, grinning.
“My friends and I call it veggie Christmas,” said Beebee. “We’re kind of obsessed with it and we get really excited. I’m the kind of person who would say that I don’t like beets even though I’ve never had one. But now, It’s like every week is an adventure and I make something awesome. I love that.”
As more people line up, they eye the week’s goods. In line are 29-year-olds Kendelle Hoyer and Scott Watanabe for their weekly pick up.
“It’s fresh, its local and organic and reasonably priced,” said Watanabe. “It also forces us to eat new things and a different variety of foods.”
“I think that farming should be moving in this direction more,” added Hoyer, munching on a strawberry. “It doesn’t use a lot of energy, and ends up helping people and the planet.”
Paul and CSA California have carefully vetted their participating five farms, all within a few hours of Los Angeles, looking for sustainable and organic farming practices, crop rotation and other responsible farming practices. They have even dropped a farm for supposedly inhumanely trapping rodents.
The CSA programs are also fostering a loyalty to not only the food and the farm, but also to its farmer.
“The farmers are becoming the celebrities now,” Paul said.
One of Paul’s choice farms is Weiser Family Farms, a collection of 160 acres of farmland across Southern California. Those two pounds of red potatoes came from Weiser farms.
“People know our stuff and know that were good farmers, that we keep our prices down and that we’re good stewards of the land,” said farmer and patriarch Alex Weiser. “Through CSAs and farmers markets, people know you face to face. It keeps your costs down and in the field more.”
CSA California is not Weiser’s only CSA. They are also involved in other Los Angeles organizations, like Farm Box LA started by farming enthusiast Reisha Fryzer. Volunteering at a farm in Malibu, Fryzer started making boxes of extra produce for friends and the demand grew.
“It was life changing, I know what passion means by growing my own food,” Fryzer said. “I thought how can I connect all these farmers and get it to the people, and decided to develop my own company that gets the produce directly to consumers.”
For a range of $50-$100 a box, a family of up to six people can get the choicest produce delivered right to their doorstep. For Farm Box LA, convenience as well as freshness is key. Clients can choose to have weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly deliveries to a home or office.
“The feedback is that it’s very convenient and offers families a big variety and the produce is significantly better,” Fryzer said. “Parents will tell me that kids start eating vegetables and people are cooking a lot more and spending more time at the dinner table.”
Like CSA California, Farm Box LA is also growing. Started only last June, the organization has grown to serve about 70 families a week, along with a few schools. Farm Box LA is in charge with delivering the snacks to Sunnyside Preschool in the San Fernando Valley.
CSA’s are also cropping up in the city itself. Farmworks LA, a nonprofit devoted to bringing urban agriculture to the forefront, currently grows crops on a five acre plot in the shadow of the 110 freeway.
Formerly a neglected part of Elysian Park, the plot is the site for Farmworks’ restaurant CSA program, serving weekly harvested fruits, vegetables and herbs to three local eateries.
Armed with garden shears and brown hiking boots, Al Renner reaches to harvest the pods off a towering stalk of fava beans.
Snip, thunk. Snip, Thunk. Snip Thunk.
One-by-one, Renner tosses the shiny- green beans into a nearly full box.
Renner, the executive director of the LA Garden Council is one of the founders of Farmworks LA. “I’m like the grandfather, he said, grinning under his sweat-soaked ball cap. “It’s a whole process and bio-organic program experimenting in urban farming.”
Trendy breakfast spot Square One, upscale Melrose Larchmont Grill and downtown eatery Homegirl Café all benefit from their partnership with the farm, getting two bushels, about 70 pounds, of fresh seasonal produce each week.
“The restaurants love it,” said Renner. “We have them knocking on our door.”
Mark Donofrio, co- owner of the Larchmont Grill, has partnered with Farmworks LA since its inception. His commitment to the farm project is due both to his devotion to local farming and desire to provide the highest standard of food to his customers.
“I’m a farmer at heart and this program is fantastic,” Donofrio said. “It’s organic, grown in LA and helps lower our carbon footprint. It’s been wonderful for us, from a cultural perspective, you don’t do it to save money; you do it for a sense of pride.
The Larchmont Grill will highlight crops from the field with special menus for the seasonal items, including homemade hummus, desserts with berries and dishes with fresh tomatoes and potatoes.
“We used to have dishes with spinach, but we’ve changed that to mixed farm greens,” said Donofrio. “Living in California, we have the advantage to grow year round. We can grow local and get local.”
Fryzer, Paul and Renner consider the demand toward local and sustainable produce to be on the rise, and a signal of a larger trend towards ecologically conscious consumers making informed choices about food.
“Standards are changing,” said Paul. “People don’t completely trust what it means for big food producers to say they’re “organic,” they want to know their food.”
Although there are a number of CSA programs in LA, Fryzer welcomes the competition, pointing to a rise in demand.
“We are more like a big community,” Fryzer said. “There are plenty of mouths to feed in Los Angeles.”
theartofmadeline
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
amandla
areudirty
snowghoul