CSAs: The Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative

I wrote an introductory post about CSAs which you can view at this link.  Now that I have had a chance to shadow the Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative (SSC), I’d like to share a little bit about this unique CSA.

The SSC was formed in 2002 by a group of southern Oregon farmers who wanted to collectively market produce and potentially provide other services for farmers and their families.  Over time, the farms involved in the SSC have changed and the CSA has become the main operation of the SSC.  Today, there are nine farms plus a handful of specialty producers that together grow delicious food for a 180 member CSA.  Maud and Tom Powell of Wolf Gulch Farm coordinate the whole operation so that the farmers and members can be happy each week.

Coordinating such an operation is not a simple venture.  While the CSA itself delivers for less than ½ of the year, the SSC is active year-round.  The farmers meet throughout the winter to plan what crops they will grow for the CSA at what time of year.  In other words, specific farms will commit to growing the early season lettuce, mid-season lettuce, or late season lettuce, and so on.  They will also decide on appropriate prices for each item of produce.

In the early spring, advertising for CSA membership becomes important.  Last year, the SSC received a large USDA grant and a lot of that money was used for marketing: a new website, posters, brochures, and other forms of advertising.  According to Maud (CSA coordinator), social media and word of mouth seem to be the most successful ways to recruit new members.  

an SSC brochure

People that choose to purchase a membership have three share options: a large share ($700 for the season), a small share ($500), or a mini share ($300).  A large share will feed 3-5 adults for the week, while a mini share will feed one person for the week  Members can also pay extra to order specialty items to be delivered weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly in their boxes: fresh chevre from Mama Terra Microcreamery, bread from Rise Up! Bakery, grain from Dunbar Farm, eggs from By George Farm, beef from L & R Farm, and flower bouquets from Sun Spirit Farm (see farm profiles on SSC's website).  This year, the SSC has also included an online webstore that has other additional produce items that members can select each week to be added to their box.  While these specialty and extra items require extra work for the SSC, they have been popular and it is important to the SSC to provide members with extra options.

After a spring of signing up members and planting crops, it is time for the CSA deliveries to begin.   This year the first delivery was June 13^th.  Each week a lot of works goes in by Maud, Tom, and the farmers to make sure that all boxes are filled by delivery time.  A typical week includes some of the following activities:

Tuesday:

- Tom calls the farmers to see what produce they have available.  He plans what is going to go into the large, small, and mini boxes, and then calls each farmer back to tell them specifically what he wants them to harvest.
- Maud prints out a variety of important spreadsheets and checklists for the week using Farmigo, a CSA management program.

Wednesday: 

- Farmers harvest their produce. 
- Tom inventories the ready-to-fill CSA boxes and puts them in the truck.
- Maud sends a reminder email to all of the members, which includes a list of items that they will be receiving in their box this week.

Thursday morning:

- Pack out!  Farmers bring their produce to L & R Farm, where all of the boxes are filled with food, item-by-item.  Maud and Tom coordinate the entire process and ensure all of the specialty orders are also placed in the appropriate boxes.  They make it seem easy!  Once the boxes have been filled, they are loaded into the truck in order of drop point and are ready for delivery.

pack out action

Thursday post pack out:
- The boxes are delivered.  There are 12 drop points where members can pick up their produce, located at homes and businesses in southern Oregon towns.  Tom uses the big CSA truck to deliver to nine of the twelve locations, while others help with some of the other sites that are in other directions.  At each site, the boxes will be unloaded and organized by share size (each box is also labeled with the member’s last name).  Tom makes sure that all of the boxes for that drop point have been unloaded and retrieves the empty boxes from last week’s delivery.  Once all of the deliveries are made, the truck goes back to Wolf Gulch Farm where the empty boxes are unloaded and cleaned for next week.
- Also on Thursday, Maud sends out recipe ideas to members for produce they may be unfamiliar with.  She also uploads a video to YouTube that includes a farmer explaining some of the produce items in the box this week.  Here's a link to last week's video.
- Happy members pick up their boxes.  

Tom inventorying boxes at a drop point Medford

And then the weekly cycle begins again. 

an early season box

I mentioned how CSAs can present unique opportunities for being committed to social justice in my first post.  Not only does the SSC provide income for sustainable farmer’s livelihoods, but it also works to provide produce to a range of constituents.  The SSC accepts Oregon Trail Cards (Oregon’s SNAP) and a decent number of CSA members make use of this option.  Additionally, an anonymous donor provides funding each year for the SSC to provide $10,000 worth of produce to senior citizens in the Medford area through ACCESS, a local food and housing assistance organization.  These produce donations come in weekly installments during the height of the growing season (aka, right now) for a period of about 10 weeks.

The normal CSA season ends after 15 weeks of deliveries.  However, members have the option of purchasing a post-season share that provides deliveries until Thanksgiving.  After that, farmers usually take a break over the winter.  However, some farms in the SSC (Wolf Gulch and Barking Moon) have their own winter CSAs, which means that consumers can get fresh local produce year-round if they desire.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Maud and Tom for letting me shadow them at their farm, pack out, and CSA delivery.