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Local Agriculture: A Growing Field
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Local Agriculture: A Growing Field
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| The rows of Red Hill Farm |
| Photo l Abygail Wright |
Red Hill Farm in Aston is an environmental initiative of the
Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, dedicated to providing
sustainably produced food for the surrounding community. Though I
traveled to Delaware County hoping to see nuns, habits tucked
into overalls, cheerfully tilling, weeding and doing God's work, I was
not disappointed when I met Red Hill's farmer, 26-year old Abygail
Wright.
A graduate of UMass-Amherst, Wright majored in
environmental science and minored in plant and soil science. After
graduation, she worked in a variety of farms: conventional, organic,
low-impact. Red Hill, a non-profit, is her first managing position. Though the farm
is not certified organic, they use organic agriculture techniques: composting,
fabric row cover to bar pests, clay spray to deter cucumber beetles.
The diminutive 5-acre farm currently grows enough food for 130
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members, who invest $700 before
each growing season for 22 weeks of a share of Red Hill's production.
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| A donation of fresh food to PhilAbundance |
| Photo l Abygail Wright |
Abygail
takes a seat by the Children's Garden, an sandpit play area flanked by
benches, flowering plants and an arbor. From here we take the long
view of the early fall crops — U-pick raspberries and blackberries,
greenhouses filled with dangling tomato vines, rows of baby bok choy
and kale. A small barn crowned with solar panels houses farm equipment
as well as the CSA member pick-up area. Members move along the
colorful bins, filling their bags with their piece of the week's
harvest. Red Hill's CSA program is maxed out at 130, and a waiting
list for the 2009 season has 50 names. Abygail sees small-scale agriculture as a
growth market.
"Local eating is a growing field," she says. "Food is talked about so much on the news, especially since Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemna ... our members are really happy ... there is just so much
demand. I've worked on farms where the waiting list for CSA is 150
people."
Red Hill hosts tours, and Wright says first graders and college
students alike marvel at the process of growing food. "The college
kids and older people are as surprised as the young kids ... they have
never seen how a zucchini grows!" Abygail hopes that more people will
return to eating locally, and that children will regard farming as "a cool
job."
Supporting your local farmers benefits the environment
and the local economy — but will the public at large ever give up their
supermarket, one-stop-shopping habits? Cool farmer Abygail doesn't
bother with cerebral arguments. "Convincing people to buy local is
easy — just invite them over for dinner! The argument is always in the
taste."
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| Farm truck and greenhouses |
| Photo l Abygail Wright |
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