by Tess Romanski, Communications Coordinator, FairShare CSA Coalition
From the theft of indigenous lands by white colonizers to the enslavement of African peoples, the history of our food system is rooted in racism and white supremacy. Add centuries of social, cultural, and legal discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, and the inequities in how we grow, sell, and eat food have only become more deeply entrenched.
Systemic barriers in agriculture have empowered primarily white farmers to succeed while making it virtually impossible for BIPOC farmers. Currently, 95% of farmers in the United States are white—and an even higher percentage of farmland is owned by white people. From the nearly 1 million Black farmers in 1920 to fewer than 50,000 today, the history of racial discrimination, legal challenges, and exclusion from federal relief, grant, and loan programs have actively excluded a large number of farmers of color. The systemic dispossession of acreage and wealth from BIPOC communities, including the prohibition of non-white land ownership, has created a food system in which the majority of our farmers are white.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a unique model that can be leveraged as a tool to challenge the white-centric nature of food production in the United States. Beginning in the early 1990s, FairShare CSA Coalition has been formally organizing CSA farmers and members to increase CSA access in Madison and across the Midwest. The basic idea behind CSA is a mutually supportive farmer-eater relationship, in which consumers “buy into” a share for a season and become a farm member, in return receiving farm products on a regular basis throughout the growing season. Farmers, in turn, have a consistent customer base to deliver their product to, and they receive an up-front payment to help cover initial annual costs of farm operation.
The Beginning of CSA
The genesis of CSA in the United States began in the 1960s with Booker T. Whatley and the concept of a clientele membership club. A concept initially proposed by a Black man, the CSA landscape today is, again, predominately white, with the majority of CSA members being white, female, and college-educated. “CSA, which is now strongly affiliated with white middle class culture, is an appropriated model,” notes Sheena Tesch, Deputy Director of Northside Programming and Director of Gardens Network at Rooted. “Over time, CSA farmers have rebranded and marketed the model to fit white culture values, including ideas of health and nutrition that center historically white diets. A true commitment to rebuilding an equitable and just food system requires us to recognize that our work is shaped by and made possible because of the contributions of Farmers of Color, past, present, and future.”
CSA as a farming model is economically viable and highly popular among small-scale diversified farmers, but can be financially prohibitive to many consumers, and farmers entering into farming or CSA production. In a perfect world, the current makeup of CSA members and farmers would be much more diverse across race, age, gender, and class.
Forging Connections
“As a farmer, I can’t change the food system on my own,” says Cassie Noltnerwyss of Crossroads Community Farm. “There are people out there who want and would use the food we grow, but it costs more to buy food produced locally and organically. What I can do is leverage the privilege and resources of my CSA members to work within the capitalist structures of the food system to expand access. For me, winter is not a time of rest but a time to intentionally forge connections with non-profits and community leaders who have the knowledge and relationships to connect my products to the people who need them. They know what their neighborhoods need and how to get it to them. What I can do is help provide them with high quality food, accompanied by a level of dignity and respect that many families who receive emergency food assistance don’t often experience.”
FairShare CSA
FairShare CSA Coalition has been dedicated to creating a just and fair food system since our organization was founded in 1992, from ensuring viability of small-scale farms to advocating for farmers to make a living wage. But in the last three years, FairShare CSA Coalition has begun intentionally working to center the perspectives of communities of color in our work and our decision-making—an essential step for any organization committed to building a more equitable food system. This will be a continual process, paired with work we are doing with partner organizations to catalyze structural change to financial frameworks, agricultural policies and cultural norms. “We believe that having communities fully invested in their local food economies has the potential to revolutionize the way we grow and eat food,” says Carrie Sedlak, Executive Director at FairShare. “By supporting a diverse group of farmers and eaters we are working to create an equitable and fair alternative to the white-centric food system we currently live within.”
As an organization, FairShare has implemented measures to include more diverse farmer and consumer voices in the Coalition. Through increasing accessibility to events and ensuring interpretation is available in multiple languages, we hope to increase the reach of our resources, training, and education to benefit all farmers and consumers in the CSA community. We have recently introduced a change in our engagement structure for farmers in order to broaden our scope of work beyond farmers who have traditionally benefited from our work. Our food access program, Partner Shares, was restructured last year to further improve accessibility of local, fresh food by including a sliding scale model of assistance, allowing participants more agency over their food choice. And through partnerships with community organizations and FairShare-endorsed farms (including Troy Farm and Crossroads Community Farm) we have been able to subsidize 250 CSA shares for community centers and institutions that have strong ties with their neighbors to ensure food is best utilized and distributed.
While we are a work in progress, we will continue to recognize the inherent barriers BIPOC farmers face in farming, and continue to work towards an equitable food system. We hope that our work helps create investments in local food economies that challenges the dominant, white-centric agricultural structure currently in place, and believe that CSA, with its inherent community-centered focus, is the backbone of a just and fair local food economy.