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| Tuesday, July 03, 2007 |
Green Farming: Organic Co-Ops
From our July/August 2007 issue. This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
 For 48 individuals and families at Atlanta’s Shearith Israel synagogue, Sunday mornings from May to October are eagerly anticipated. That’s when a local organic farmer whom the group financially supports through pre-paid co-op memberships brings the weekly bounty.
The Shearith Israel co-op is an example of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and is one of a growing number of synagogues and JCCs in the U.S. partnering with the Jewish environmental organization Hazon. Hazon started the Tuv Ha’Aretz (meaning both ‘good for the land’ and ‘good from the land’) CSA program back in 2004.
“We wanted to see Jewish families support local farmers and put their purchasing power with local agriculture,” says Leah Koenig, food projects coordinator for Hazon. Not only is this concept noted in Jewish tradition, but a diet rich in fresh vegetables “is what it means to eat fit in the 21st century,” she adds.
The Shearith Israel community readily embraced the idea, says Dan Finkel, a congregant who was instrumental in bringing the Tuv Ha’Aretz program to his Conservative synagogue. And in its first year, the co-op already has a waiting list. “It really took off quickly,” Finkel says. “It was an idea people were ready for.”
Matching grants from Hazon enable CSA sites to offer an educational component such as speakers or cooking demonstrations. Koenig says that Hazon is creating a curriculum that uses Talmudic and contemporary texts to discuss food and other so-called green issues.
The CSA season runs for about 20 weeks from roughly the Jewish agricultural holidays of Shavuot to Sukkot, and part of the fun is that Tuv Ha’Aretz members never know exactly what they’re getting each week. At a recent pick up, Shearith Israel members took home a number of items including arugala, strawberries, kohlrabi, onions, spinach, and bokchoi.
And something else seems to be growing, notes Finkel. “People come with their bags and boxes, and then stay and talk and hang around,” he says. “It’s starting to form into a community.”
This article is part of our larger package, the AJL Green List.
-- Text by Fran Nachman Putney / Photo by Rich Vintage
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