Last modified: Sunday, April 22, 2007 12:00 AM EDT Marilyn Cook, whose family has farmed here since 1705, transplants parsley in a greenhouse on Cooks Valley Farm, Wrentham. (Staff photo by MIKE GEORGE) Think globally, eat locally BY GLORIA LaBOUNTY SUN CHRONICLE STAFF The fresh produce flows in abundance on summertime Tuesdays at Crystal Spring in Plainville. Boxes and bags stuffed with vegetable assortments such as mixed greens and turnips, kale and cauliflower, radishes and snap peas might arrive in June, while by August the booty becomes summer squash and cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant, carrots and peppers, herbs and flowers. Tuesday is distribution day for the Community Supported Agriculture program, or CSA, that is sponsored by Crystal Spring, a center for earth literacy in partnership with Heirloom Harvest Community Farm in Westboro, where the crops are grown. Some 50 different vegetables are raised organically on the farm's 20 acres, and people buy shares for the season that provide them with fresh weekly produce from early June to late October in a kind of partnership between the farm and the people it feeds. "It's an investment and a commitment," said Sister Carole Rossi, one of three Kentucky Dominican nuns at Crystal Spring. "If a crop fails or succeeds, we share in it," she said. "In one sense, everyone is a farmer." It's the kind of connection that is building nationwide as Americans become increasingly aware of the quality and source of the foods they eat. Experts say that outbreaks of food contamination, fears over global warming and concerns about distant agricultural practices have all contributed to the growing movement to eat locally. "For me, eating is a moral issue," said Beth Jackson of Plainville, a CSA shareholder and volunteer at Crystal Spring who is also coordinator of Simply Keep It Local or SKIL, a group of people from several communities, including Plainville, Foxboro and Wrentham, who are committed to locally grown foods, and to the concept of the 100-mile diet of trying to eat foods produced within that radius. "What I choose to eat affects what is produced, and how it is produced," Jackson said. Eating locally not only supports the local economy and uses fewer fossil fuels for food transport, she said, but also directly connects people to the source of the foods they consume. "I feel so much safer knowing where my food is coming from," she said. "I can see the practices with my own eyes." That kind of sentiment is spreading. "I do think there is a trend in this direction. There is no question about that," said Brian Donahue, associate professor of American environmental studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, who has written extensively on sustainable farming practices and who helped start and run a CSA years ago. Donahue finds it gratifying that the movement toward eating locally has caught on in recent years as people distinguish it from simply eating organic foods. "In a way, this is the new organic," he said. The reasons for the momentum, according to Donahue, include the decades of concern over the quality of food that led to the growth of the organic food movement years ago. That mindset began reconnecting people to locally grown produce, he said, and an increasing interest in high-quality foods. Both environmental and personal health concerns pushed the movement along, he said, as well as the work of many who were dedicated to promoting the cause and who seemed to tap into something that was already on people's minds. He's pleased it's happening. "There is no reason why a supposedly affluent society should not be eating really good food," Donahue said, especially the healthful and flavorful varieties grown on local farms. Donahue was a founder of a CSA farm in Weston in the 1980s, a time when the concept was first taking hold in this country. Now more than 1,000 of these farms exist in the United States and Canada, according to the University of Massachusetts Extension program that has supported CSA farms for almost two decades. UMass sees CSAs as a way of directly linking the production of food with consumers. CSA members commit to supporting the farm through the season by providing money upfront that covers the farm's operating costs, and that means they assume both the risks and the rewards. According to UMass, food in this country travels an average of 1,300 miles from where it is grown to where it is sold. Almost every state, including Massachusetts, buys 85 percent of its food from someplace else, yet Massachusetts could produce about 35 percent of its food supply, according to UMass studies, and that would contribute $1 billion annually to the state's economy. Yet farmland is rapidly being lost to development, mostly for economic reasons. That makes the CSA concept a viable alternative in helping small farms survive. The Heirloom Harvest farm that supplies the shares distributed at Crystal Spring involves 20 acres owned by St. Luke's parish, where a social justice program evolved into an environmental commitment several years ago. John Mitchell, who farms the land, said each shareholder pays $600 for the season, and many people split their shares because of the abundance of produce that is distributed. Each shareholder also has to give six hours of work to the farm over the season, which can mean working in the greenhouse in early spring, transplanting in the fields in May, or weeding and harvesting from June to the fall. Not all CSAs are certified organic farms, but Heirloom Harvest is, which means it must meet national standards to legally use the organic label. Whether it's better to eat locally or organically if both are not possible is a debate being played out nationally and one that was analyzed recently in a Time magazine cover story. The conclusion: local is better for a host of reasons. While she strives to eat organically, Rossi said some crops are simply too difficult to grow without fertilizers. For instance, she said no organic apples can be grown on the East Coast because there is no organic way of controlling pests. Besides the shares from Heirloom Harvest, Crystal Spring provides other products that are also available on the CSA distribution day, like fresh-baked breads, organically produced eggs and free-range chicken. "It's like we run a farmer's market," Rossi said. There's also lots of sharing of recipes and tips on cooking, canning and freezing to make the most of the harvest, skills that are also promoted by SKIL. Kristen Lewis, who runs Rabbit's Dance Farm in Cumberland, R.I., has 60 CSA shareholders for the coming season, and has seen the number grow each year. CSAs, she said, create a connection with the land and the seasons. "It tunes you in to the rhythm of the Earth," she said. "You are eating what is growing now. You are more connected to the place." More importantly, "you know where it's grown," she said. "That's incredibly satisfying." Those who want to buy locally but prefer not to be tied into a CSA share can simply turn to area farms for produce so fresh that it can go from the land to the table in a matter of hours. Marilyn Cook of Cooks Valley Farm in Wrentham, which has been family-owned since 1705, said she has seen increased interest the past three years in supporting local growers, a trend augmented by various campaigns. Restaurants are joining the movement, she said, and a whole group now turns to area farms for produce. She does the same when she buys food products to sell at her farm stand that she cannot grow herself. She buys locally, and to her that means Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts. "If we can't get it there, we don't have it on the stand," she said. One reason for people to buy local produce, she said, is the sense of security it offers. "Every time there is a food scare on TV, it does not hurt us," she said. "If people can put a face to their food, they feel safer." After the last reports of spinach contamination, she said, "we could have sold a lot of spinach" if it had been available. Cooks Farm is not a certified organic farm because of the difficulty in growing some crops organically, especially fruit. "Apples in this area are absolutely impossible," Cook said, mostly because of fungal diseases and certain pests that have to be controlled. But the farm's practices resemble those used by organic growers, such as composting and cover cropping to enrich the soils, and integrated pest management that involves monitoring disease and insects by scouting and trapping. When pesticides are needed, Cook said, a lot of biological ones are used. Similar practices are employed at Four Town Farm in Seekonk, whose 200 acres extend into the neighboring communities of Swansea and East Providence and Barrington, R.I. Jeanne Clegg, whose family has been farming the land for more than 100 years, said she has also observed a growing interest in buying locally. "I see a big pickup in end-of-year totals," Clegg said. "They have increased every year." Besides wanting to support local farmers, she said, consumers simply want to know what they are getting without wondering how long produce has been sitting at the grocery store, and where it came from. Like Cook, she buys locally when she brings in additional food items to sell at the farm stand. "We support local farms, and they buy from us," she said. "One hand helps the other." While the reasons for eating local produce are many, there's a basic one that Clegg can experience any time she walks through the fields on a summer's day. It's the pure joy of eating really fresh food. "I could go out there and pick an ear of corn and eat it with no cooking or anything," she said. "It's so good." GLORIA LaBOUNTY can be reached at 508-236-0333 or at glabounty@thesunchronicle.com.