[Content Copyright © Adam Gottschalk 1999]

The Small-Farm Restaurant System, continued

Due to a variety of cultural, philosophical, and scientistic trends, qualitative analysis frequently has been marginalized. Socio-cultural farm issues, particularly related to rural decay, for example, have been considered in totally economistic terms, and have been taken as trivial even to consider in the face of the convenience benefits supposedly accruing to most of us in the ever-increasingly urban (increasingly dependent) masses. (We're now beyond the 75%-urban mark.) The benefits of deagriculturalization/urbanization have been taken for granted and taken as win-win in every case by all but a very few on the radical fringe. Trauger Groh writes in the beginning of Farms of Tomorrow Revisited:

"When we speak about the need for healthy farm organisms, we think first of our food supply and then we think of the farm as part of our natural world, shaping the environment in positive or negative ways. Rarely do we have in mind the great contribution that living on farms and working in nature gives to our inner soul development and to the shaping of our social faculties."

SFR, like CSA, aims to help rejuvenate, on the basis of the food system, the personal development and social faculties even of those not directly living or working on farms. SFR seeks, as David Orr advises, to reverse "social atomization:"

"The success of any program of civic renewal depends on the reversal of two centuries of social atomization...The requirements of sustainability will lead us to recognize that we are citizens of a larger community whose individual and collective well-being is tied to that of the larger fabric of life."

SFR wants to place itself at the heart of civic renewal. It has the potential to reacquaint consumers with the nature of that larger fabric of life--not only with the sources of their food (and the sources of negative externalities in the mainstream food system), but with the peculiarities of their local ecology, and, maybe most importantly of all, with each other.

Another premise here is that community space can be created without having to found an intentional community or cohousing project. Food is the premiere realm in which to bring folks together for such a purpose. Folks like eating out, eating well, just as they like sometimes to be seen and to people watch. SFR can help folks recognize each other as neighbors with common concerns for health and local power--but without making them commit to living side by side day in and day out. People can come together frequently at an SFR and bond with the attraction of a locally-based, ecologically-sound, and economically-viable food system at the center of things. The complete-meals orientation of SFR is a metaphor for the broad nourishment it should provide.

Along these lines, to host community events--presentations from community groups, workshops, classes, etc.--is also an integral part of the SFR process. Ultimately arts and entertainment are to be included in the program as well . These are relevant and significant matters because the idea is to create an atmosphere which people look forward to basking in, and which they see as enriching in more than one way. Folks should be encouraged to tap into the creativity and productive energy they witness in action when they walk through the SFR doors. (This realm, however, less directly related to the food part of things, is not the focus of this paper.)

Finally, consumer members should be encouraged to do work-shares or work-studies. They can help with any aspect of the SFR, from the bee-keeping to the book-keeping, as long as the labor is needed, in exchange for a share of a size relative to the size of their input. (There are limits as to how many work-shares can be afforded, of course; these and other limits will be discerned over time.) Otherwise, folks can help with the functions they choose simply for the sake of the learning and participation (a.k.a.: internship). There are no secrets and no hierarchies. Better that everyone learn everyone else's job. Ultimately this will yield a highly resilient organization in which personnel dynamics and changes represent opportunities rather than obstacles.

Distinctions

I would like to elaborate on the similarities and distinctions between CSA and SFR. First off, some similarities. SFR is member owned and not geared toward "export" of products outside the supporting membership or physical eatery; though catering to folks outside the membership might be possible, this is not the primary goal. Secondly, SFR farms are minimally mechanized and minimally chemicalized, and so, for these and other reasons, start up and operate with minimal overhead. Finally, the key is that the restaurant/farm system be supported by the membership, one way or another; dollars-and-cents profits, especially profits to shareholders, are not the focus. All that is asked is that enough compensation--in the form of money, services, or product barter--come to the value-adding and primary-producer members that they be allowed to live "sufficiently" well (sufficiency is to be defined more exactly by the membership as a whole) and to ensure that the SFR remains viable in the long term. Because of this non-money emphasis, SFR is compatible with barter programs, LETSystems, and supplementary economies of all kinds.