In this workshop, we will describe the original ideals out of which our Community Supported Farm was founded in New Hampshire in 1986. This model goes beyond marketing and was based on Rudolf Steiner's social ideal of the farm in relation to the surrounding community. We will pay special attention to Steiner's description of the farm as a part of the cultural (agriCULTURE) and rights spheres and not exclusively as an economic activity. This implies an understanding of his observation of the threefold nature of social life.
The three workshop leaders will be Alice Groh and Anthony Graham of the Temple-Wilton Community Farm in Wilton, NH and Josh Volk of Slow Hand Farm in Portland, OR. The Temple-Wilton Community Farm is one of the original CSA farms in North America, founded with partners Trauger Groh, Anthony Graham and Lincoln Geiger in 1986. Trauger Groh wrote two books on the CSA concept: Farms of Tomorrow: Community Supported Farms and Farm-Supported Communities and Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (still in print and available from SteinerBooks.org). He died in July 2016 at the age of 84. Josh Volk is working with the original ideals of the CSA idea in a more recent setting on his Slow Hand Farm. Together the presenters would like to lead a discussion of the original core ideals of CSA and where it might go in the future.
