Boxes of color and health!

Chiang Mai’s first community supported agriculture (CSA) network was born Jan. 4, 2011 when youth from the Mae Tha valley delivered 25 boxes of organic produce to Chiang Mai International School. From the responses so far, the network is off to a good start.

First CSA box!

Ahn and Toh, two young farmers from the small lovely valley to the east of Chiang Mai Province, arrived at 7.30 a.m. with a pickup truck loaded with foam boxes containing a variety of fresh and organic produce: spinach, tomatoes, leaf lettuce, sweet potatoes, papaya and much more. Five families in Mae Tha are working together to directly provide 25 families in Chiang Mai city with weekly produce that was grown in harmony with both nature and the health of the farmers. This is the latest initiative of a valley famous amongst Thai foodies and nature lovers for its heroic efforts to overcome the so-called green revolution of chemicals and monoculture that has poisoned the Thai landscape.

Unlike so many Thai villages depopulated of young people who have fled farming to try their luck in the city, Ahn and Toh and their colleagues have decided to stick around on their family farms, helping their parents to reshape the landscape with diverse and vibrant small organic farms. This community supported agriculture network is a new initiative in a valley that is home to some of Thailand’s organic pioneers. The network links these farming families with city people who care dearly about the quality of the food their family consumes, but who also care about the impacts that their food purchases have on the environment and farmer wellbeing. That box of food they’re buying every week is a kind of vote for sustainability.

Spinach, pomelo, and a whole lot of greens.

Many thanks to the Mae Tha organic farmers and the Chiang Mai organic consumers working together in this new network, and thanks to Sarah Rutherford for helping coordinate the network. Fair Earth Farm would also like to thank the US State Dept. for funding to do the feasibility research that put us in a position to help the Mae Tha youth get this network started.

LOGISTICS

Every Wednesday morning each food buyer should bring her empty foam box and 200 baht to the pickup point just outside the gates of Chiang Mai International School between 7.30 and 9 a.m. In return they will receive a full box of fresh food.

The variety of food will vary from week to week and from season to season. The general idea is that the first four weeks will demonstrate the range of cool season products available. Each week will be a bit different. By the end of the month, the consumers will have a sense of what they want or don’t want. A survey will then be distributed to evaluate customer satisfaction and preferences. In the following months, an attempt will be made to match available produce with customer preferences.

Let’s keep in mind, however, that this is not an exact science. The farmers are trying to work together with nature, not to conquer it. There won’t necessarily be spinach or tomatoes all year long. Nature doesn’t work that way. Let’s agree to communicate openly with our concerns and suggestions, using various means, including this website, emails, periodic meetings and farm visits.

Here are some sample boxes from this week (not every box exactly turned out this way):

Edible chrysanthemum, or tang oh

Box 1:

lettuce
edible chrysanthemum
kale
cabbage
papaya

Box 2:

purple eggplant
broccoli
cauliflower

romaine, or cos, lettuce
banana

Spinach, or pak bui leng

Box 3:

sweet potato
tomato
spinach
leafy Chinese cabbage
radish
cilantro

COMMUNICATIONS:

For the time being, one communications platform for this network can be this website. The idea is that an independent website or blog will be established and maintained by the Mae Tha youth and volunteers. Anyone with skills (and funding) to establish a new dedicated site for the network is encouraged to volunteer.

For now, we’ll be posting weekly updates along with the baskets, such as this one, and we’ll send a single email alert. Anyone interested can add comments to the post, and you are encouraged to do that with recipes, suggestions and links to other sites.

Other ideas about network communications are welcome.

Marisa has suggested using Google Groups. This can be a very effective and convenient way to communicate. She’s meeting with Ahn to help get this started. How do other people feel about this?

SUGGESTIONS:

Farm visit

For those with the interest and time, it’d be great to organize a visit to the farmers who are growing our food. Mae Tha is only an hour or so from town, and it’s a beautiful place of lovely people. In the spirit of CSA, it is good to know the land and people providing the food. While the Mae Tha growers who provide food for the CSA are certified organic farmers, it is still a lot of fun to visit the farms and see how the food is grown. And it’s good for everyone’s confidence. And it’s great for kids to get out into the countryside.

For anyone interested, please contact us here or call Jeff at 081 287 7551.

Communicating questions, images, etc

Thanks to Wyn and Sally for the photos of vegetables, which they were trying to identify. And thanks to Rick and John for the answers. This kind of communication is a big part of the “community” in CSA.

Recipes

For many of us, the food boxes are a colorful but rather strange collection. What is all that stuff? Within the network, there is a good collection of skills, experience and imagination. Let’s swap recipes and try new dishes. The comment section on these posts is one way. Swapping emails is another. But we can probably come up with a more interesting and visually appealing way to communicate good recipes.

We’ve already gotten some good tips in. For example, Nicola wrote that “I am using leafy greens to put in smoothies with fruit – a great way to boost your vegetable intake.”

And Ellen explained how they put the produce box to good use on the evening of its delivery:

“We received assorted salad greens, small sweet potatoes, a bag of grape tomatoes, spinach, a somo fruit (pomelo), and some Thai green leafy vegetables.

1. Tomato and spinach sauté:  I took some of the tomatoes, cut them in half and sauteed them together with the spinach in olive oil and garlic.  I sprinkled in some fresh ground pepper and sprinkled some parmesan cheese on the top.
2. Mixed green salad
3. Baked sweet potatoes:  I took the little sweet potatoes (most were finger sized), washed them well and then sliced them long ways (left skins on).  Put them in a zip lock bag with a little olive oil (maybe 2 teaspoons) and a little paprika. Shake to coat.  Arrange on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees F (200 C) for about 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with salt.
4. Somo: we ate this as is but it was quite tart (though good).  I think it would be been good in a salad and will be looking for a recipe.

“As for the greens with yellow flowers known as pak kat, I use it like collard greens.  I sauté it in a bit of bacon fat and sprinkle maybe 2-3 pieces of fried, chopped bacon on top. You can also add a little chopped dried red pepper to this.  It could also be sauteed in olive oil.

“Our Thai helper cooks Thai food for us twice a week. I’m leaving the other greens for her to use.  However, if I were going to use them myself, I’d ask her how they are generally cooked (boiled, stir-fried, etc.) and then figure out how I might modify that into a more western dish.

“I’d be interested to hear how others used their vegetables!”

Although I just had (a CSA) dinner, that description has me hungry again already!

One thing that might be fun to do is to have some cooking parties. We can get together, cook up some food and learn from each other. I know from good experience that we have some great cooks in this group!

Thanks again to everyone for making this happen!