Maysie's Farm Conservation Center CSA Financial Report By Louise Smith In 2001, our CSA memberships and net sales of chickens, eggs, cookbooks and apples brought in about $50,000. In addition, CSA members generously donated almost $3000 for education programs and performed volunteer services worth $7000. We also received a generous grant in the amount of $2500 from the Arthur and Marjorie Miller Fund of the Chester County Community Foundation to support our Sustainable Agriculture Internship Program. Our revenues including contributed services were $62,000. In 2001 our total membership households was 128 as compared with 135 in the prior year. This decline was somewhat due to the creation of new CSAs and the growth of other CSAs in the area. Some of our previous members joined these CSAs in 2001 because they are in closer proximity to their homes. We assisted some of these CSAs with start-up through our Outreach Program and are pleased with their progress. We will increase our marketing efforts this winter to reach out to more households in northern Chester County to join our CSA for the 2002 season. Your efforts as current members to share information about our CSA with friends, colleagues and family would be a great help. Our largest expense in 2001 was farm labor of $37,000 for a portion of Sam Cantrell's efforts, a farm manager (for several months) and interns throughout the year. Our garden expenses for seeds, plants, compost and irrigation and other garden supplies were $8000 (we used a large amount of purchased compost last year). Maintenance of farm equipment and vehicles cost $2500. Our cost for renting the intern house of $5200 was reasonable due to the fact that we share the home (and its costs) with Paul Morgan, who is a CSA member and on the Board of Maysie's Farm Conservation Center. Including other expenses of about $7000 and contributed services of $7000, our total expenses were $67,000 last year. Unfortunately, our expenses last year were about $5000 greater than our revenues, according to the bookkeeping system that seems most appropriate for our organization. Since we had some funds remaining from grants made to the Sustainable Agriculture Internship Program in 2000, we were able to use those funds in 2001 for intern costs. (If our CSA were a sole proprietor business and only funded minimal intern education, revenues would exceed expenses by better than $12,000, which would constitute the farmer's salary.) For the year 2002, we are budgeting CSA revenues of $80,000 to be slightly higher than costs of $78,000, with CSA membership of 150 households and slightly higher membership prices to cover the cost base. We anticipate having a farm manager and the equivalent of four interns in place for most of the year; however, if our staffing is less than that, the above numbers may be somewhat reduced as well. We hope to increase our acreage in production somewhat, though this is dependent on having adequate staff early in the season. We plan to finish the irrigation system so that all the field crops will have access to water more easily and more regularly than in the past. We are moving the greenhouse to a site just above the church field and hope to install a second greenhouse nearby in the next year or two. We are also in need of several pieces of farm equipment that will make our work more efficient, but we don't yet have the funds available for them (a precision seeder, a manure spreader and a potato hiller). The cost to install the second greenhouse and purchase these three farm tools is about $15,000. Our annual CSA budget does not take into account such major capital purchases. If anyone would like to make a donation towards the capital purchases for the CSA equipment, checks can be sent to Maysie's Farm Conservation Center with a notation that the purpose is "CSA capital equipment purchase." We would be grateful for any contributions that would increase our productivity and lighten our interns' workload. We are looking forward to a bountiful growing season.

Northeast CSA Conference by Dawn Lawless Approximately 300 people made their way to Frost Valley Environmental Education Center in Claryville, New York in early December to attend the Northeast CSA Conference that is organized by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group. The goal of the conference was to strengthen and support CSA farms and farmers, to encourage new farms and farmers, and to expand the CSA movement. I have to say that there was an exciting energy and an inspirational momentum to be felt there. I was inspired by the speeches made by keynote speakers Gloria and Steve Decator. This husband and wife team has been at the forefront of the CSA movement on the west coast. They explained that while the movement originally focused on growing food ecologically — taking good care of the earth — now it addresses the social issues of agriculture as well — taking good care of the people. The other keynote was Peter Mann, the international coordinator for the New York City-based organization World Hunger Year (WHY), which promotes local, community-based approaches to ending hunger and poverty. He reminded us that a "hungry world is a dangerous place." He mentioned that on September 11th of last year, the same day that the deaths of several thousand Americans shocked the world, about 24,000 children from around the world died of hunger. In fact about 24,000 children die from hunger every day of the year. Peter stated that "agriculture is the mother of our culture," and we are experiencing a crisis of community. His vision of world peace is everyone eating from his or her own local food supply. I agree with his opinion that belonging to a CSA is a way to choose your own food security. I attended several workshops dealing with issues such as involving shareholders and volunteers, building a core group, using CSAs to educate about local food system issues, improving newsletters, and hosting children on the farm. I walked away from these workshops with the proud feeling that Maysie's Farm is in the forefront, leading the way on many of these topics. Despite being a young organization, we have accomplished a lot in a short period of time thanks to the hard work of our dedicated members. One workshop on farming techniques touted "bio-strips" — sod strips between the beds exactly like ours — for their role in increasing bio-diversity on the farm by providing habitat above and, especially, below the ground. There was time for networking and having fun. Most members from Maysie's Farm enjoyed an evening of square dancing and contra dancing. Former interns Matthew and Liz tried to teach us old folks a crash course in this style of group dancing, which turned out to be tremendous fun. This trip symbolized the beginning of winter for me with the arrival of a few inches of snow the weekend we were in the Catskills. The area was absolutely beautiful. One main theme resonated with me: we need to try to bring the culture back into agriculture, to create farms that operate with the active support of their communities.