Red Fire Farm: year in review
Dec. 7th, 2008 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidFriday night there was a meeting for metro-Boston share-owners (shareholders is technically correct, I suppose, but has a somewhat different implication...) of my farm, held in the community room of the Central Square Harvest Coop. Since I had no Shabbat guests and I knew one of the entrances wasn't an electrified door, it all worked out.
The short: the farm had a lot more shares this year, and the wet weather was not good for some crops, but in general the farm is in good shape.
The long: There was a lot going on at the farm this year. The original plan was to sell about 600 shares, but they ended up selling about 830 shares, and even so had a wait list of 300 others. About two-thirds of the farm's income is from the shares, with other income from two farm stands, a farmer's market in Springfield, and some wholesale sales. Of the shares, about 250 are in western MA near the farm, and the rest are in metro Boston. I hadn't realized that so much of the business is in Boston.
There was a cool aerial map of the farm, with all the different fields marked off. I hadn't known that there are other, noncontiguous fields nearby, all of them on a year to year lease, which makes Ryan (the farmer) a bit nervous. He owns 25 acres outright, and rents at least that much. Since it's a year-to-year situation, there's always the chance that something will go pear-shaped, which is why he'd like to raise enough money to buy more land outright. On the plus side, not only are these same fields already lined up for 2009, there's a huge new field that they've just managed to lease for the first time for next year, just down the street. Also, there's different soils in some of these fields, which can be a boon when growing such a variety of vegetables. Still, this year with all the rain, some of the low-lying ones didn't produce as well. Also, with having taken on so many extra shares this year, not as many of the fields lay fallow (well, with cover crops) as much of the time.
There were also graphs: bar graphs showing the number of share holders each year, and the number of acres under cultivation each year (no surprise, there's a positive correlation! :-). There was a triple bar graph showing income, expenses, and capital expenses. This year, that last category was rather large, but a lot of it was for things that will help long term, including newer tractors and (some other big vehicle with a front loader thingie), a new roof on the farm house, renovations to the barns, greenhouses and so on. There's still more to be done, of course, including a better shed for washing veggies, renovating the kitchen, and making more sleeping spaces, since many of the farm workers live there during the season, and this year some of them had to camp out. Another plus of having more shareholders: better hourly wages for the farm workers, having risen from just under $5 in the early 2000s to around $8 this year. Still not enough to get rich on, but anything moving closer to a living wage is good (plus, food and housing is included, so it's not quite as stark as it sounds. Theoretically, anyway.). Ryan would also like to build a few more greenhouses, and keep going through more of the winter (wholesale as well as winter shares), until February or even later; I totally approve of this!
(After the presentations and discussions ended, I mentioned to Sarah (one of the coordinators) how cool real data is, and she said they'd put at least some of the data on the website. I think she was surprised anyone would be interested in seeing this for more than a brief glance.)
There were analyses of what was grown this year, comparing quantities as well as market value. I didn't get to look at the few sheets floating around, so I'm hoping those will also be put on the website. (And perhaps next year also, what a lot of people wanted: a list of all the varieties grown. It's nice to know what kinds of squashes, or tomatoes, or onions I'm getting.)
The farm had done some surveys, and they had tabulated the results. On the whole, people are satisfied, though there are details that could work better. This segued into discussions of how things worked at the distribution sites this year and what could be improved, down to the level of order of veggies on the tables, the challenges of weighing round vegetables on a flat-topped scale without a basket, how to encourage people to swap amongst themselves if they want, and what to say to people who didn't speak English and wanted to buy something (the plan: get a description of what a farm share is translated into a number of different languages to have on hand). I felt like the Jewish squeaky wheel, mentioning how there are people who wouldn't've come to this meeting, also those who wouldn't get a Brighton share because it's Friday afternoon (ditto a winter share, but even more so), and how if the winter share distributions weren't Friday (it's currently Friday because that's when they pack stuff for wholesale), it's likely they could use space in a synagogue for a winter share distribution (it needs to be inside lest the veggies (and the site coordinator :-) freeze). Another issue was how bulk orders don't seem to work well on the farm end. I'm not sure what the specifics are, but some part of the process isn't ideal. I wonder whether having a dedicated email address would help, but from other discussions, it seems that they're only so tech savvy...
eta Also, the farm had a number of shares for low-income people, plus sent food to local charities like Food for Free and Food Not Bombs. The approximate value of donations was in the mid $30Ks. /edit
I chatted with a couple of people afterward, including the founder of New Amsterdam Project, a bike delivery service. She's thinking of offering one-off farm share deliveries in addition to the whole season, as long as people give 24-hour notice. I think that would be great: I don't want the share delivered every week, but I can imagine some weeks might be difficult to get there, and having this as a backup would be excellent.
I still feel that I got a bit less this year than last, a combination of a wet year and perhaps too many shares compared to acres, but I feel very positive about the farm going forward, knowing that they're interested in suggestions, listening to what people want.
(Note: I wasn't taking notes; there may be inaccuracies in what I'm remembering.)
The short: the farm had a lot more shares this year, and the wet weather was not good for some crops, but in general the farm is in good shape.
The long: There was a lot going on at the farm this year. The original plan was to sell about 600 shares, but they ended up selling about 830 shares, and even so had a wait list of 300 others. About two-thirds of the farm's income is from the shares, with other income from two farm stands, a farmer's market in Springfield, and some wholesale sales. Of the shares, about 250 are in western MA near the farm, and the rest are in metro Boston. I hadn't realized that so much of the business is in Boston.
There was a cool aerial map of the farm, with all the different fields marked off. I hadn't known that there are other, noncontiguous fields nearby, all of them on a year to year lease, which makes Ryan (the farmer) a bit nervous. He owns 25 acres outright, and rents at least that much. Since it's a year-to-year situation, there's always the chance that something will go pear-shaped, which is why he'd like to raise enough money to buy more land outright. On the plus side, not only are these same fields already lined up for 2009, there's a huge new field that they've just managed to lease for the first time for next year, just down the street. Also, there's different soils in some of these fields, which can be a boon when growing such a variety of vegetables. Still, this year with all the rain, some of the low-lying ones didn't produce as well. Also, with having taken on so many extra shares this year, not as many of the fields lay fallow (well, with cover crops) as much of the time.
There were also graphs: bar graphs showing the number of share holders each year, and the number of acres under cultivation each year (no surprise, there's a positive correlation! :-). There was a triple bar graph showing income, expenses, and capital expenses. This year, that last category was rather large, but a lot of it was for things that will help long term, including newer tractors and (some other big vehicle with a front loader thingie), a new roof on the farm house, renovations to the barns, greenhouses and so on. There's still more to be done, of course, including a better shed for washing veggies, renovating the kitchen, and making more sleeping spaces, since many of the farm workers live there during the season, and this year some of them had to camp out. Another plus of having more shareholders: better hourly wages for the farm workers, having risen from just under $5 in the early 2000s to around $8 this year. Still not enough to get rich on, but anything moving closer to a living wage is good (plus, food and housing is included, so it's not quite as stark as it sounds. Theoretically, anyway.). Ryan would also like to build a few more greenhouses, and keep going through more of the winter (wholesale as well as winter shares), until February or even later; I totally approve of this!
(After the presentations and discussions ended, I mentioned to Sarah (one of the coordinators) how cool real data is, and she said they'd put at least some of the data on the website. I think she was surprised anyone would be interested in seeing this for more than a brief glance.)
There were analyses of what was grown this year, comparing quantities as well as market value. I didn't get to look at the few sheets floating around, so I'm hoping those will also be put on the website. (And perhaps next year also, what a lot of people wanted: a list of all the varieties grown. It's nice to know what kinds of squashes, or tomatoes, or onions I'm getting.)
The farm had done some surveys, and they had tabulated the results. On the whole, people are satisfied, though there are details that could work better. This segued into discussions of how things worked at the distribution sites this year and what could be improved, down to the level of order of veggies on the tables, the challenges of weighing round vegetables on a flat-topped scale without a basket, how to encourage people to swap amongst themselves if they want, and what to say to people who didn't speak English and wanted to buy something (the plan: get a description of what a farm share is translated into a number of different languages to have on hand). I felt like the Jewish squeaky wheel, mentioning how there are people who wouldn't've come to this meeting, also those who wouldn't get a Brighton share because it's Friday afternoon (ditto a winter share, but even more so), and how if the winter share distributions weren't Friday (it's currently Friday because that's when they pack stuff for wholesale), it's likely they could use space in a synagogue for a winter share distribution (it needs to be inside lest the veggies (and the site coordinator :-) freeze). Another issue was how bulk orders don't seem to work well on the farm end. I'm not sure what the specifics are, but some part of the process isn't ideal. I wonder whether having a dedicated email address would help, but from other discussions, it seems that they're only so tech savvy...
eta Also, the farm had a number of shares for low-income people, plus sent food to local charities like Food for Free and Food Not Bombs. The approximate value of donations was in the mid $30Ks. /edit
I chatted with a couple of people afterward, including the founder of New Amsterdam Project, a bike delivery service. She's thinking of offering one-off farm share deliveries in addition to the whole season, as long as people give 24-hour notice. I think that would be great: I don't want the share delivered every week, but I can imagine some weeks might be difficult to get there, and having this as a backup would be excellent.
I still feel that I got a bit less this year than last, a combination of a wet year and perhaps too many shares compared to acres, but I feel very positive about the farm going forward, knowing that they're interested in suggestions, listening to what people want.
(Note: I wasn't taking notes; there may be inaccuracies in what I'm remembering.)
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 04:55 pm (UTC)How does one find out about shares for low-income folks?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 10:31 pm (UTC)