Farm Friday- A Brief History of the CSA and the Future of the Blog

Greetings,

We started writing these posts during the pandemic to give people a taste of the Farm while stuck at home and to continue to lean into the “educational” piece of our mission as an educational farm. In addition to sharing tips on growing and cooking with various crops that we have at the Farm, we intend to accompany those tidbits with historical and social context.

In the coming posts, our blog will explore one crop that is grown at the farm through an anti-colonial lens each week. For preview, some of these plants will be: sugarcane, okra, watermelon and bananas.

To start off the next month or so of analyzing the relationships between farming, crops, colonization, slavery and anti-blackness, we will introduce a brief history of the CSA (community supported agriculture) or CMC (Clientele Membership Club) system. Although other people have been credited for starting CSA systems in Europe and Japan, Booker T. Whatley, a Black, agricultural professor from Alabama played a huge part in conceptualizing and popularizing the concept in the United States. His CMC system allowed consumers to get produce for 40% less than supermarket pricing; this was one of his many contributions to the farming world. The Black heritage of important farming models, like the CSA, are often made invisible or forgotten by many and must be acknowledged. We will write more about other black farmers and black farming initiatives, both historical and contemporary, in future posts.

Whatley, born in 1915, witnessed the huge loss of black-owned farm land from the 1910’s through the 1970’s, which was/continues to be realized through a variety of racist legal mechanisms, institutions and systems. It should be acknowledged that this methodical looting of land by white people was used against indigenous people, as well. According to Leah Pennimans’ book, Farming While Black, 14% of farmland in the U.S. was owned by black families whereas now, less than 1% of farms are black-owned (yes, this is a plug! Penniman started the Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, is featured on many podcasts and has written a book, everything she says is amazing!)

Given the statistics above, it should be clear how crucial supporting black land ownership is. This can be fulfilled through ordering a CSA, in some cases making a donation and in others (during non-covid times) volunteering manual labor. There are many lists online of black-owned farms, so do your research!

Best,
Kate and Isabel (our incoming farm manager)