Story and photos by Hannah Miller, August 2008

• Introduction
• The popularity of local food
• Electric co-ops are “partners”
• Connecting people and food
• Download the full article as a

Click photo to enlarge

When Laura Benoit opens the bag of produce she gets regularly from Laughing Owl Farm, she never knows what delights she’ll find inside. She retrieves her bag at the Charlotte Tailgate Farmers Market on West Park Avenue, which is the designated drop-off point for Laughing Owl Farm, located in Stanly County

“It’s like Christmas every week,” she says. Laura is a baker in Charlotte who is on her second year of Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership. She says she looks forward each week to getting “all sorts of great, awesome things. Super-duper-delicious garlic, lettuces, spinach. I get eggs. I love his eggs.”

Laura Benoit is one of the hundreds of North Carolinians who, in essence, have become partners with their region’s farmers by signing up as members of the farms’ CSA co-ops. They pay a set fee in advance to share in the farm’s bounty over a certain number of weeks. Owner Dean Mullis of Laughing Owl, whose CSA season runs May-October, says, “It gives us working capital in the spring when we’re planting crops.” It enables Laughing Owl, he says, “to get started, order seeds, order drip irrigation lines.” Laughing Owl’s fee is $600, $690 if members opt for a dozen eggs weekly from free-range hens.

The risks of farming are shared along with the bounty as customers receive what’s in season. “We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature,” says Tony Phillips, operations manager at Poplar Ridge Farm in Union County. If there’s not enough spinach to go around to all the CSA members, he’ll give them a mix, filling out their allotted bushel with Bibb lettuce or green lettuce.

“The amount varies in weight and volume and value depending on the time of year,” explains Sammy Koenigsberg, who with his wife Melinda runs New Town Farms in Union County. “The value works out over the whole season.” As for the weekly amount, “A bushel is probably a good average,” he says.