Mae Lynn Stoutenburg
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Dane Hildebrandt hand-weeds summer squash in a hoop house at Hermit Creek Farm, Highbridge, Wisconsin.
Every week during our growing season, hundreds of edible treasure chests arrive for residents along all four shores of Lake Superior.
Each box bears a bounty of local fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy or meat products that come directly from dozens of local farms to residents who invest in their food through programs called Community Supported Agriculture or CSA.
Through a CSA, which can be a group covering several farms or run by one farm, members buy into the growing season. In support of the farm, members do take a financial risk – a bad season may mean less produce or other products and there are no refunds – but they usually reap a regular box of local foods, often certified organic.
Tiffany Sprague and Samantha Smingler of Duluth bought into a CSA with Hermit Creek Farm in Highbridge, Wisconsin, for the first time last year.
Tiffany admits that the boxes delivered weekly at a dropoff point in Duluth frankly spoiled her … because of the magnificent taste of truly local foods.
“I’ve now been ruined in terms of eating carrots and broccoli and even the onions,” she says brightly. Everything in their box was “cut or plucked or picked within 24 hours; the taste is just phenomenal.”
Bob Gross
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Carrots are one of the items Hermit Creek can deliver throughout the winter.
This year a number of her coworkers at UMD’s Natural Resources and Research Institute are buying into Hermit Creek’s CSA, so the farm added the research institute to its delivery list.
That connection to the farms and enthusiasm for the harvest is typical, says Stefanie Jaeger, manager of the Lake Superior CSA, operated by the Bayfield Foods Cooperative, which also manages South Shore Meats and the Bayfield Foods wholesale distribution program.
“The CSA offers people a chance to really connect with local farmers by sharing in the risks and rewards, along with healthier eating through really fresh produce and other items,” Stefanie says. “You’re supporting local farmers, while investing in your own health and that of the community.”
Eating healthy while supporting local farmers can be “like Christmas every week,” she adds.
In a traditional CSA, a farmer sells a limited number of “shares” or “half shares” to interested consumers. CSA arrangements, though, come in many varieties (see the side story).
All four of the Lake’s shores – Minnesota, Michigan, Ontario and Wisconsin – have CSAs, with the largest numbers in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Typically a CSA share yields a box of seasonal vegetables or other farm products delivered to a dropoff point. During peak seasons, deliveries are generally weekly. If shares are purchased for winter, those often are monthly.
“The contents of the box is dictated by what is ripe at a particular point in the season,” says Marcelle Paulin, whose certified organic Sleepy G Farm in Pass Lake is one of the rare Ontario CSAs in the region. She owns the farm with Brendan Grant.
“For example, for the first weeks there may only be bok choy, lettuce, radishes and green onions. By September, however, late season crops like tomatoes, squash, cabbage and onions will be ready to go. … In terms of quantity, your CSA box will fulfill most, if not all, of your family’s weekly vegetable needs. Feedback from our customers suggests that a single CSA box is about the right amount of vegetables for a family of four.”
Hermit Creek Farm has offered CSA shares for 22 years, one of the oldest regional programs. Owners Steven and Landis Spickerman have farmed their 140 acres since 1989 in Wisconsin’s rugged Penokee Hills, becoming a commercial operation in 1993 and starting the CSA in 1995. They employ four to five people during the peak season, April through October. “They are our backbone, and we couldn’t do what we do without them,” Steven says.
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Metta Monday Creative
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Steven and Landis Spickerman strike a “Northern Gothic” pose at their Hermit Creek Farm in Highbridge, Wisconsin.
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Landis cultivates early summer broccoli.
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
From left, Quinton Babush, Tyler Couch, Lily Shoshnik and Sara Tarkington show off the harvest at Hermit Creek Farm.
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Courtesy Sleepy G Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
At Sleepy G Farm near Thunder Bay, Brendan Grant works a team of oxen, Red and River. They’re pulling a cultipacker to pack and level the soil. Sleepy G mostly uses a modern tractor, but keeps the oxen as a reminder of farm tradition.
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Courtesy Sleepy G Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Brendan at Sleepy G Farm works on packing the CSA boxes to get them ready for delivery.
Like so many CSA farms, the Spickermans believe in organic agriculture and became USDA certified organic in 2000.
“We subscribe to the old adage, ‘You are what you eat,’” says Steven, “and besides organic being healthier for you, your farmer and the land, it plain tastes better.”
In addition to growing a wide variety of vegetables, the Spickermans raise hogs and sheep, tap maple trees to make syrup and maintain a flock of laying hens. Hermit Creek Farm is one of the largest local suppliers of produce to the Chequamegon Food Co-op in Ashland and supplies numerous area restaurants as well as Northland College.
Last year the farm’s CSA had 213 members and this year hopes are to increase to 250. The farm also continues its CSA program into winter for those who wish to add that subscription.
Depending on the time of year, Steven says, the boxes offer eight to 14 items. “We try to include something leafy green, something that has a crunch to it (cucumbers or carrots).”
The box generally contains familiar items, but Steven admits with amusement, “We sometimes throw something in that makes you scratch your head.”
The food, share purchasers agree, covers most produce needs.
Morgan Swingen, who works at NRRI like Tiffany, first signed up for a summer share from Hermit Creek Farm in 2015. She and her husband, Jason, upped the ante for 2017, choosing to purchase a full-year classic share, dubbed “The Works.” With just the two of them, though, they went with the every-other-week delivery option.
“It’s fun to get new things I’ve never tried before and I’m always excited to get my box,” she says. “The CSA membership forces me to branch out, and I’ve learned to like some things a lot more than I used to, like kohlrabi, radishes, beets and fennel.”
What arrives in the box has altered over the three decades that CSAs have existed in the United States.
“It has definitely evolved over the years to where you’re not just getting chard and three eggs,” recalls Libby Sutton, a longtime CSA supporter from Ashland. “Now you have way more choices.”
Courtesy Lake Superior CSA
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
On vegetable box packing day, John Adams of Yeoman Farm in Ashland, Wisconsin, one of the more than 20 farmers and food producers who supply the Lake Superior CSA, prepares the weekly deliveries.
Many CSA members enjoy the challenge of matching their meals to what arrives in their boxes.
Software programmer and distance runner Adam Schwartz-Lowe of Duluth says his Lake Superior CSA membership forces more creativity in the kitchen. Some CSA farms provide online newsletters with recipes and some include them in the weekly boxes.
“With all of the veggies, you really have to keep up with eating them. I will Google recipes for certain things like fennel root or daikon radishes, things I would normally never buy. It’s fun combining things and finding new ways to prepare staple items like carrots.”
He and his wife, Amy, had belonged to a CSA in Minneapolis before moving to Duluth three years ago. They purchase a half-share in the whole diet plan and invested in a chest freezer to store the meat.
Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Flavorful CSA tomatoes are much praised.
“We knew we wanted to try one here, and we had some friends who knew about the Lake Superior CSA, so we checked it out. We liked the fact that they had meat as well.”
Stefanie has seen steady, incremental growth at the Lake Superior CSA during her three years as manager. “We had 250 to 300 committed share owners last year in addition to the people who were nonmember customers.”
People who don’t buy regular shares can place a special order through Lake Superior CSA’s recently launched direct shipping program. The cooperative offers products from more than 20 farmers and food producers, rather than items grown or raised on a single farm. Farmers and producers must be located in Ashland or Bayfield counties and must be invited to join by a current agricultural member.
“Our CSA has two seasons,” Stefanie says. “The winter one runs from October through March, while our main season is from May through October. Our 2017 season shares will be on sale until May 15.”
While members admit the box is a high point – that “Christmas every week,” as Stefanie says – the deeper reward comes from supporting small local agriculture.
They also know where their food comes from and how it is grown. Many CSA farms invite members to visit.
Farmers benefit by pre-selling produce, which allows for better planning and less waste. Share sales generate up-front income to cover seeds, tools, equipment and labor.
Ontario’s Sleepy G Farm’s July through October members constitute a large portion of annual revenue. “Our summer vegetable CSA program accounts for about 50 percent of our annual revenue,” Marcelle says. They hire three to five workers, May to November.
CSA members become like extended family. “Many of these families have grown with our farm,” Marcelle says. “They have seen us improve the farm’s infrastructure, expand the operation, become certified organic, experience hardships and become agricultural leaders in our community. We have seen our families have children, experience marriages, graduations, retirements and many other milestones in life. We know each family personally. We are at each weekly pickup to say ‘Hello,’ answer questions and be the face of our operation. We are their farmers and they are our eaters.”
About 85 percent of Sleepy G’s 150 CSA members return every year, and they have a waiting list for those spaces likely to open. “We’ve been maxed out for several years,” Marcelle says. “There’s certainly opportunity for CSAs to start in Thunder Bay.”
Hermit Creek Farm counts about 70 percent of its revenue from its CSAs. It also sells to local restaurants, the food co-op and Northland College. During all of the years delivering boxes, the farm has never had to cancel a share because of lack of harvest. Three times, though, they’ve delivered a day late to Duluth: once after the 2012 floods in Duluth, once last year after mass flooding closed Wisconsin roads and one time due to a challenging snowstorm.
“Customers call to say, ‘Don’t come today,” Steven says. “The biggest thing for us is knowing who our customers are. We have some who have been customers for 20 years or more. We know them, we know their children, we know their grandchildren. Everybody has a family doctor, a family dentist, a family CPA. We’re your family farmer.”
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Two members of the Hermit Creek Farm crew sort onions for curing.
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Landis Spickerman plants tomatoes in one of 10 high tunnels at Hermit Creek.
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Courtesy Sleepy G Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Marcelle Paulin of Sleepy G Farm shows off some romaine lettuce.
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Landis hand-harvests mid-summer cucumbers.
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Courtesy Hermit Creek Farm
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Carola and Rick Dalen of Northern Harvest Farm in Wrenshall, Minnesota, sign on at Hermit Creek Farm for a day to learn about transplanting broccoli using a tractor.
Linda Rise of Washburn was one of the first to join the Hermit Creek Farm CSA. The former manager of the Chequamegon Food Co-op knew the Spickermans as shoppers at the Chapple Avenue store. “I love to eat fruits and vegetables, but I’m not much of a gardener myself. This way I get lots of veggies with no weeding.”
Linda and her husband, Andy Noyes, purchase Hermit Creek’s year-round share that includes eggs, cheese, pork and will add lamb this fall.
Mae Lynn Stoutenburg
Community Supported Agriculture: Edible Profits for Investors in Our Local Food
Chris Corrigan holds a fine turnip from River Road Farm, Marengo, Wisconsin, part of the Lake Superior CSA.
Buying shares connects them to the real rhythm of planting and harvest and has encouraged them to enjoy each thing in its season.
Linda says she won’t eat a winter tomato shipped from afar. “Once you’ve eaten produce fresh from the farm, you know how delicious things really taste when they are in season and grown here. You’re much more aware of that.”
She calls the first CSA tomato of the season “a celebration. Get out the bacon! We’re making BLTs! That’s become our tradition.”
Stefanie says many CSA members find the same heightened awareness of food and harvest.
“We’re all so used to buying whatever we need at a grocery store that people have become disconnected from the growing season. You can go to the store in January and buy cucumbers and tomatoes without really thinking about where they came from in the middle of winter.”
Marcelle agrees. “Our CSA is much more than a weekly box of food. It is the city person’s connection to farming, food production, the rural life.”
Farm Connections
Call it a “membership” or “subscription,” a “share” or “half shares,” there are many ways to invest in Community Supported Agriculture.
Hermit Creek Farm is a good example of the options, with shares ranging from as few as three deliveries for the fall season ($100) to 17 weekly summer shares ($550) to 29 deliveries, weekly spring through fall and monthly in winter ($1,280). The farm delivers to sites in Wisconsin at Superior, Ashland, Washburn, Bayfield, Mason, Iron River, Highbridge and Minocqua, and to several places in Duluth, including to At Sara’s Table/Chester Creek Café and this year to NRRI.
Lake Superior CSA offers a variety of plans, including a “whole diet share” featuring fruits, vegetables and meats, just veggies or just meats. Plans range from $123 per week delivery in summer to a six-delivery winter share for $90. “We can tailor it to meet their specific needs,” says Stefanie. “And there are monthly payment plans available if someone can’t afford to make that large one-time payment up front. Our goal is to make this more accessible to more people.” Lake Superior CSA drops off in Washburn, Ashland, Iron River, Superior and Duluth.
If you’re looking to join a CSA, try these sites to find a CSA in your Big Lake neighborhood:
Michigan: UP Food Exchange has a downloadable directory with more than a dozen CSA options: upfoodexchange.com
Minnesota: Minnesota Grown has an online search for CSAs based on city or zip code, minnesotagrown.com
Wisconsin: Bayfield Foods, bayfieldfoods.org; Hermit Creek Farm, www.hermitcreekfarm.com
Ontario: Sleepy G Farm, www.sleepygfarm.ca
Candace Ross Ferguson is a freelance writer, editor and digital content manager living (and happily eating local foods) in Ashland, Wisconsin. She also is the former night editor of The Daily Press in Ashland.