CSA farms growing in popularity on LI

When Scott Chaskey came back from England in 1989, he had not only studied poetry and writing at Oxford University, but he had learned excellent farming and gardening skills.

It was in the years after Oxford that he harvested these skills in the English village of Mousehole until they blossomed into a lifelong passion.

With his newfound expertise, Chaskey returned to Amagansett and discovered Quail Hill Farm thanks to his wife, Megan, a fellow poet he met at Oxford.

Quail Hill is home to one of the country’s first community-supported agriculture, or CSA, programs and it was just getting off the ground when Chaskey got involved. His wife’s parents were one of 10 families that started the program.

“When I came back here, the CSA movement was just starting and that gave something else to add to the enjoyment of gardening,” he said.

Chaskey, now the farm manager at Quail Hill, has seen the farm grow from a community of 10 families to more than 250 families in its 22nd year.

Based on the idea that farming traditionally was the crux of a community, CSA's rely on the support of the community.

To help finance CSA farms, members purchase shares of the eventual food output at the beginning of the season. Often, volunteers receive a discount on their shares for helping out.

“It’s to ensure that no matter what kind of season we have, we’re getting paid and we have a community that supports us,” said Liz Moran, a farm manager at Quail Hill. “Whether it’s crop failure, disease, change in climate, it’s ensuring our livelihoods and feeding each other in the right way.”

On Long Island, a number of farms have established CSA programs – Garden of Eve in Riverhead and Hamlet Organic Garden in Brookhaven – have both been thriving sources of local agriculture for many years.

“You can tell that their popularity has been increasing by looking at the increasing number of shares they sell each year to members,” said Sandra Menasha, the vegetable specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. “Most of them actually fill up and have a waiting list.”

The growing popularity has created positive effects, Menasha said. “I think it’s just sparked more interest in people that don’t have land or can’t get involved with community gardens. To be a member of a CSA, to be closer to farms and see how their food is growing.”

Sean Pilger, farm manager at Hamlet Organic Garden in Brookhaven, said his farm sold 250 shares, at $600 per share, this season.

“It’s a great idea, and it works out really well,” Pilger said. “I don’t know how this farm would be in business if we didn’t do a CSA.”

Pilger works alongside Stephen Hilles, one of Hamlet Organic Garden’s founding farmers, who helped start the farm in 1996. Hilles said the farm, a CSA from the start, gets nearly 95 percent of its funds from its CSA program.

“I think that having not started off as farmers … we really do put a lot of energy into bringing people who are interested in farming onto the farm,” said Eve Kaplan, founder of Garden of Eve, who has turned her backyard gardening hobby into a full community-supported farm over the past decade.

“Again, it’s bringing people back to their agriculture roots that they have kind of been losing lately,” she added. “Perhaps sparking interest in them in becoming farmers some day, or at least gardeners.”

Hilles thinks of CSAs in a similar manner. “We welcome people to come help out as much as possible. Not just to have the extra help, but also to pass on the agriculture tradition that most people are pretty far removed from.”

And Pilger is optimistic about the positive growth spurt.

“I think it could definitely continue,” he said. “There’s land available, there’s interest in doing it. I think there’s a lot of room for CSAs to spread and take over more of the food production.”