From the Barn to the 'Burb: Subscription Farming

From the Barn to the 'Burb
Subscription Farming
by Kathleen Kastilahn

Dan Guenther wanted to show of his new rototiller "It cost more than my college education," he said, "$4,7000." But this was January in Minnesota, and the Dutch-built machine was in the far corner of an open-sided shed.

Now, in May, the foot of crusty snow that covered the five acres at the edge of Minneapolis where Guenther grows vegetables has melted. And the 30-year-old market gardener already has put his hand to the rototiller for many hours. He has planted potatoes and onions. Seedling beans, peas and tomatoes are growing in the greenhouse.

The expensive rototiller is earning its keep. It's not valuable because of its cost but because it preserves the soil. "It stirs the soil instead of fracturing it," said Guenther, a member of Grace University Lutheran Church, Minneapolis. "So the capillary - the ability to take in moisture - isn't destroyed. The subsoil doesn't get compacted."

That's just a taste of Guenther's commitments - and the technical knowledge - he has acquired the past four years. He picked up this knowledge by experience, not at the University of Idaho, Moscow, where he was a speech communications major.

But he has learned his trade well enough to publish Tools of the Trade. The booklet reviews equipment and technologies and recounts how he developed a market garden. "I didn't even own a hoe when I started," he laughed. Most of his tools cost far less than the rototiller - including a 1907 transplanter he bought for $100. Although GUenther wasn't raised on a farm, he had enjoyed summer visits on relatives' lands. He was raised in the Lutheran church and, after college, felt called to pastoral ministry. He enrolled at the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania but left after a year. "It was a frustrating time," he reflected. "The study was intellectual, dogmatic. My faith had to have hands-on experience."

He found that at Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in the Cascade Mountains of northwest Washington. GUenther lived and worked at Holden for nearly two years, eventually acquiring the exalted and exhausting position of "head maverick." He did all the odd jobs, mostly outdoors, and thrived. "There was a sign in the garage I worked out of - 'The Minister of Mechanics,'" he said. It became a symbol for him that there are many ways to work out of one's faith.

Subscription farming
Guenther's way is Common Harvest Farm. It is located 18 miles west of the Minneapolis neighborhood where he lives with his wife, Margaret Pennings, whom he met at Holden. The couple has a daughter, Annie, born at the end of October, just after the last crops were picked.

Common Harvest is an expression of a growing phenomenon called subscription farming or community-supported agriculture. People pay a certain sum at the beginning of the year to a farmer who will deliver produce - fresh and organic - to them weekly throughout the growing season.

Some payoffs are obvious. Vegetable farmers get cash and customers; subscribers receive plentiful and pesticide-free produce.

In this regard, Guenther is precise about what he means by "organic." He said, "[People] usually talk about what 'organic' isn't - it isn't treated with chemical herbicides or pesticides.

"But growing organic crops is more than that. It's building soil fertility by growing 'green' manure - cover crops like winter rye, alfalfa and clover that are high in the nutrients that growing vegetables take from the soil. I plow them back in. I also use composted turkey manure. Vegetables grown in good soil are more resistant to pests.

"Community farming has been going on for 30 years in Europe and Japan. People got concerned about the safety of their food and started contracting directly with local growers." The movement took root in the United States in 1986. Today there are some 400 working experiments like Common harvest.

This season Guenther will pay $100 an acre to rent land and expects to raise $40,000 worth of crops. A third of that is his salary. It's not enough to support his family.

"I'd like to be more involved at the farm," Pennings said. "But my contribution now has to be my job, which makes it possible for Dan to do that work." She teaches English to foreign business people.

Last season 116 shareholders paid Guenther $200 each. For this he grew two dozen different vegetables, which he planted, picked and packed. Subscribers received two big canvas bags of vegetables a week for 17 weeks.

That accounted for more than 80 percent of Guenther's business. He also sold to a food co-op and two restaurants.

Among the six drop-off sites are four churches, two Lutheran, one Baptist and one Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Building community
"We're doing much more than exchanging fresh vegetables for cash," Guenther said. "We're reconnecting with the land. We're working for food security by preserving a local piece of farmland. And we're building community among ourselves."

Subscribers become friends with other subscribers. "I enjoy hearing the talk and the laughter of people who walk over to our house (one of the drop-off sites)," Pennings said. "Compare that to pushing a cart through supermarket aisles."

For many this community includes work and fun. Lee Tate and her husband, Steve, are subscribers who live in suburban Wayzata, Minnesota, near the farm. Lee helps pack bags for the 26 others who pick them up from her church. The Tates are members of the local Disciples of Christ church who met Guenther when he spoke there.

"We must move from the idea that the world is one big factory, and that farmers are just a cog in that food producing machine."

-- C. Dean Freudenberger

"I'm drawn to what Dan's doing," Lee Tate said. "I help put up the temporary greenhouse. I like transplanting, the rhythm of riding on the machine. In fact, I'm amazed at my own energy for it all."

Steve Tate added an apple butter boil, combining windfall apples and a family recipe, to a season of festivals for subscribers. The festivals begin with a May Day farm tour and include an August corn and tomato potluck and herb harvest.

Guenther does not want membership limited to those with money needed for the upfront payment. "We won't be doing enough if this doesn't get beyond a personal choice," he said. "We have to look toward changing our lifestyles."

He has planted that thought at 20 ELCA congregations in the Twin Cities through adult forms and at workshops funded by a $2,000 grant from the Minneapolis Area Synod's church and society board.

"Dan is a prophet," said the Reverend James R. Thomas, assistant to the synod's bishop. "He prods and cajoles us to think about what we're doing and what we're not doing to the earth."

This is beginning among the Common Harvest members. The Tates' drop-off group brought two extra subscriptions for distribution at their town food pantry. Other members have some of their deliveries sent to the needy. Last summer Guenther swapped a half-share for farm help with a past member who couldn't rejoin after losing her job.

With a $5,000 World Hunger education grant from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Guenther also led the compilation of a 150-page alternative food and agriculture resource directory, Common Harvest. More than 500 copies of the second edition, published a year ago, have been distributed.

In last season's final newsletter to subscribers, Guenther surveyed subscribers and received 60 returns. Most planned to renew. "The most consistent remarks were that there was just too much food," he said.

Preserving how-to
"People said they couldn't use all the vegetables, especially cauliflower. We had a cool summer, good - too good - for cauliflower." That's a signal to him to increase the number of workshops in canning, freezing and drying.

Subscriber Janet Grant, a member of the Community of St. Martin, a Twin Cities Lutheran worship and service group, led some preserving workshops last season. She taught methods she learned growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm.

"I want to support Dan's efforts in making connections for people between food and land," Grant said. "It's good to know we can live lower off the food chain and be a small part of the solution to the worldwide [food] problems. I like to get really dirty too - go out to the farm to help."

The surveys also showed Guenther that some subscribers' support isn't quite so deep. Many wrote that they are glad to be subscribers but can't give the time to get more involved. He has a list of a dozen or so that will help on particularly busy days.

"A number of trends underlie the (dangerous) transformation underway in our country:

The trend toward bigness and concentration. Over half the food in the USA is produced on about 4 percent of the farms.
The trend toward specialization.
The separation of people from the land, or ownership from work. More people who work the land have no hopes of ever owning it. Thus, many who farm have no interest in preserving the land for future generations."

-- Marty Strange

No weekends
The peak season days are long - sunup to sundown. His weeks are without weekends. "I took seven days off in seven months last year," he said. That's not a complaint. "Even when there isn't something I have to do," he confessed, "if there's something growing - I want to be there to watch it."

He does make exceptions. He plans to take off a Friday afternoon in early June to speak at the Minneapolis Area Synod assembly.

"I can't resist a chance to talk about how churches can start working with food and justice issues," he said. "As a church we should care about building relationships with the soil, food and each other."

Minnesota' relatively short growing season provides Guenther with time for the research, writing and speaking that he needs to cultivate wider awareness of his concerns.

"My father-in-law, who is a farmer, told me once I should make up my mind whether I wanted to farm - or talk about farming," he confessed.

But Guenther's pastor doesn't see a conflict. The Reverend Robert Baugh, interim pastor of Grace University, encourages him to preach what he practices. "Dan brings a transparency of spirit to us," Baugh said. "His faith commitment is so evident in what he does and how he lives. I'm excited about what Dan's ministry can bring to us."

Kathleen Kastilahn is features editor of The Lutheran.