6 minute read
Growing Local: How Regenerative Agriculture Impacts Local Economy, and Local Living
Q&A with Alexis Campbell, Executive Director, Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education
BY KATIE MAHONEY I CHIEF MARKETING & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
The Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education is an educational nonprofit focused on regenerative agriculture and ecological education operating on a 186-acre farm owned by the County of York. In addition to being a working farm that supports six local farm businesses, they provide land-based educational programs, community events, land stewardship training, community gardens, and locally grown food.
Q: What inspired the creation of The Horn Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) plans?
A: Since 2016, the Horn Farm Center CSA has been providing local community members with weekly boxes of fresh, chemical-free vegetables and fruits. The CSA began in conjunction with our former internship program, which was designed as a way for people with little to no farming experience to learn to grow a wide range of vegetables for themselves or for market. In addition to serving as the training ground for our programs, the Horn Farm CSA feeds about 40 families each year.
In the past several years, the Horn Farm Center's Signature Training Programs have evolved and expanded beyond our production fields to focus on holistic land stewardship. While the Horn Farm Center is transitioning to more perennial production systems, we continue to support regenerative vegetable production on the farm. Today, we continue to offer the Horn Farm CSA in partnership with the Kilgore Family Farm and other local farms including York Fresh Food Farms and Green Barn Farm.
Q: How does a CSA plan work?
A: In the CSA model, members of the community pledge support to a farm, with the grower and consumers sharing the risks and benefits of food production. The consumer (shareholder) pays a fee at the beginning of the season in exchange for a regular, weekly share of the harvest. The farmers benefit from the financial support at the beginning of the season and the shareholders benefit from knowing they have a weekly supply of fresh, seasonal, chemical-free produce, all while understanding the potential for setbacks and fluctuations with unpredictable factors like weather and pest problems.
Q: How have you seen the CSA plans impact the community?
A: The CSA has helped to foster this sense of relationship connecting grower, consumer, and the land, getting people more in touch with each other and inspiring deeper appreciation for the land that sustains us. The CSA also enables the Horn Farm Center to provide more land-based learning opportunities for community members by supporting our educational programs and stewardship projects.
Q: What is your opinion on the economic impact of local agriculture?
A: CSAs or any direct farm-to-consumer business models have an incredibly positive effect on the environment and local economy. There are more than 2 million farms in the US and they all vary greatly in size and characteristics. For example, according to the USDA, annual gross revenue on farms can range from as little as $1000 to more than
$5 million. Large-scale and non-family farms dominate production of high value crops including vegetables, fruits, and tree nuts. This means that most of the food we see in our grocery stores are produced on large-scale, non-family farms, or farms owned by corporations. These farms have anywhere from 1,400 to 2,000 or more acres of production. In order to farm on that scale, a large amount of equipment, chemical inputs, energy-use, and transportation are required.
In addition to successfully supplying high volumes of foods to global markets, large-scale agriculture can generate negative outcomes. Practices like soil tillage, crop and livestock transportation, and manure management, contribute more than 17 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year. Additionally, agriculture is the leading source of impairments in our rivers and lakes.
Beyond reducing emissions and negative environmental impact, local agriculture boosts the resilience of our communities. Having a diversity of local farms regionally ensures that we are able to meet the dietary and material needs of our community in the face of economic and environmental uncertainty.
- Alexis Campbell, Executive Director, Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education
Q: Horn Farm is known as a resource center for many initiatives and interests – what are the top reasons someone engages with the Horn Farm?
A: We grow many things at the Horn Farm Center but our most important product is education and community. People primarily connect with us through our classes, which range from sustainable home gardening to scratch-baking bread, ethical foraging to wildlands restoration. We're even expanding our class scope this year to include regional natural history, mycology, and more kitchen sessions, testifying to how our class offerings really top our engagement with the public.
A refrain we often hear from our participants is a desire to reconnect with nature - of feeling disconnected and trying to find restorative pathways - this reconnection is the tissue that binds our classes. People learn with us to rebuild communion with natural spaces, wild and stewarded, and that can be through identifying native edible plants, trying their hand at wildcrafting, exploring ways to garden without synthetic inputs, and a host of other activities that turn our attention back to the land and long-held ways of living harmoniously with it.
Here's What You Can Expect From a CSA Plan:
The season lasts 20 weeks from June until October. Produce seasonally often is:
SPRING: lettuces, spinach, kale, swiss chard, spring onions, beets, herbs
SUMMER: kale, swiss chard, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, beets, summer squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, onions, herbs, and more!
FALL: garlic, beets, turnips, winter squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, swiss chard, spinach
Horn Farm | 4945 Horn Road, York, PA 17406 | education@hornfarmcenter.org
