What is the future of farming in western North Carolina? For many the answer is Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA. CSA’s started in this country only a couple of decades ago, but the movement is growing fast. Our region, with its innovative farmers and supportive community, has embraced CSA’s. On an eight-acre tract of bottomland on the South Toe River in Yancey County, Gaelan Corozine and Nicole DelCogliano, with their daughter Asha, are creating a community that reintegrates local people with local farms and food. Green Toe Ground Farm has thirty “members” who share in many different aspects of the process of growing food -- from working on the farm to simply receiving a weekly box of the freshest, healthiest, and best tasting food -- and all share in keeping farms and food a part of the community.
Gaelan came to farming fifteen years ago when he apprenticed on a farm in New York. After several years of working on organic and biodynamic farms in New York, Switzerland, and Ireland, he returned to start a CSA farm in New Paltz, New York. There he learned how a CSA works and how CSA’s could be the answer to re-integrating farming with the community. A CSA is a partnership between farmers and nearby consumers. Members of a CSA pay in advance for a share of the farm’s production. They also help plan what will be grown on the farm and how much food they will get each week. On some CSA farms, the members can actually work on the farm as part of the payment for their share. In all cases, the consumer gets to know the farmer that grows their food and they can visit the farm and make decisions on how their food is grown. According to Gaelan, “CSA’s can provide a way for farmers to keep control of their livelihoods, and the CSA members can find a powerful way to gain control of an extremely important part of their lives – the food that they eat!”
While in New York, Gaelan met Nicole and they found that they shared a love for farming. They also found that they shared a love for teaching -- teaching children and adults about the joy of growing things, about the need for community, and about the threats to family farms. They moved to Celo in 1998 to start a gardening program at the Arthur Morgan School. They soon began the process of taking over ownership of the long established Green Toe Ground Farm. Last year, they started their own CSA and this year they are expanding. Members of the CSA can expect a diversity of fresh “hand-crafted” and ecologically grown vegetables and a connection with the farm and the process of growing food.
Nicole and Gaelan specialize in heirlooms – fruits and vegetables that have been developed over centuries for their taste and other qualities but not necessarily for the demands of packing and travel. For most of the food we get from the grocery store, travel and shelf life are the most important characteristics. Industrial food producers also diminish the genetic diversity by concentrating on a few varieties, through hybridization or genetic engineering, that meet the demands of food that travels an average 1500 miles before it reaches the dinner table. Gaelan and Nicole prefer varieties that taste great, and because they are picking and delivering weekly, they can concentrate on variety and not worry about “shelf-life.” They grow over fifty kinds of vegetables on their farm. “We strive to increase the richness of our land and maintain a healthy balance in our ecosystem,” says Nicole.
Nicole and Gaelan balance their farming with education. They invite children of all ages to come out to the farm. They host school groups and offer classes on the farm. They also work to integrate locally grown food in the local schools’ cafeterias. This season, through a special program with the Yancey County School system, Green Toe Ground and other farms’ vegetables will be available in the public schools. “The future of farming depends on reaching out to others,” notes Gaelan. “People need to understand that when we lose our connection with food and farms we lose some of our freedom” as we become ever more dependent on far-away farms that have no connection to local community.

If you would like to join the Green Toe Ground CSA call them at 828-675-0171. To find out more about CSA’s or to locate a CSA near you pick up a Local Food Guide or visit www.BuyAppalachian.org. Green Toe Ground is a member of the Mountain CSA Association (MCSAA), an association of regional CSA’s committed to raising awareness of local farming issues and CSA’s and to pooling resources in the larger community of local agriculture. Contact the MCSAA at charlie@asapconnections.org or call 828-293-3262.

Want to read more articles like this? Subscribe to New Life Journal.
Return to top
Home