Hurricane Irene Taking Away my Greens

Hurricane Irene provided a wonderful Home Depot Holiday for New York City residents.  In my tiny square of the city, the storm did none so much as lift a trash can, but not everywhere on the East Coast fared so lucky.  A mere two block stroll from my apartment, giant trees were torn from the ground.  Along the waterway there were uprooted trees, as well, harming no one but providing some fun balance beams for exploration of the damage in the days after.  Many lost power in the outer boroughs.  The worst hit though, by far, were many farmers upstate.  Farmers’ land was immersed, worst in the days after Irene, with the swells that followed in her wake.  Land was covered in water, washing away the crops that grow above the earth, and rotting the ones that grow beneath her protection.  My Community Supported Agriculture farmer lost 95% of his crops, debilitating him.  He has nothing to sell at the farmer’s market but owes for the farmer’s market selling space regardless and can no longer continue his CSA members’ weekly shares in full.  In addition to paying for many repairs, he needed to purchase seeds for quick growing crops to plant now in order to have something to sell in the fall.  After his entire spring and summer of work—preparing, planting, tending—he must back trace and redo every step.   Worse, no matter how hard he works, he cannot change time:  he still must wait months from now for any new crops to be ready to to harvest and sell.  For him, this means he will lose two months at the farmer’s market, and when he returns he will have a very limited variety, mainly greens.  For us CSA members, this means weeks without food, and no squash, no sweet potatoes (!!!! L), no more tomatoes, no more peaches…no end of the summer or fall vegetables. 

Amid a sea of green from the storm winds.

Battling on a felled tree...with a felled tree.

The one New York City casualty of Irene.

But this is what a CSA is, right?  It’s time to put our money where our mouths are!  On paper, I love the idea of a Community Supported Agriculture.  We share risk, we support a local farmer, and we get the freshest of the freshest food.  But when things go wrong, sharing the risk means actually sharing the risk!!  We paid one lump fee for what we assumed would be the entire summer, and it turns out we will only receive half of what we had originally expected.  So how are CSA members taking the lousy news?  Well, after having paid for 28 weeks of produce that we will never receive…we have raised $1,500 of our own additional money for the farmer to help him with expenses.  

Woah—we did what?  I’m impressed myself.  Because we know our farmer directly, we could not let him go under!  We are scrounging together extra money—even as we go to the grocery store and purchase our produce to make up for what we lack—we are finding ways to give extra money to the farm.   I have given $20 each of the past two weeks that I have gone to pick up my small share of leftover produce.

Just Food is currently organizing to help the dozens of farmers who were affected (http://justfood.org/ ), as well.  That said, our CSA’s ability to organize to help our own farmer has been extremely impressive

I consider that way better than donating to save the polar bears or fight hunger in Kenya.  Rather than through an organization—where frequently less than half of the money given arrives to the ground where it is intended to go and where who knows if the organization has the best intentions or knows what really is best for the local community—100% of this money arrives to our farmer.  And I am helping something local that I know is virtuous; I know because I live here, I understand local circumstances, and thus I know how it affects my community.