During the community hardships of the Covid-19 pandemic, our on-site staff wizard Cecilia Fischer has doubled down on building the subscriber or donor base for Community-Supported Agriculture and helping its productivity keep pace with demand. Most recently, her talks with farmer Luis Bastida of San Javier helped him decide to plant crops for a prepaying customer base. Hence, from the start of formal operations, Cecilia has served as co-administrator of his operation, called Jardin Jesuita. This report is based on her notes. Photos by Cecilia and Erik Stevens.
Early in the season for an hour after sunrise, it can be cold enough in the mountain location of the fields to make members shiver when they arrive to help the San Javier farmers pick and load their produce.
“[on December 4th]
38 F. at 7 a.m. at the gardens in San Javier! We froze for an hour with 4 volunteer harvesters but kept our spirits high.”
The latest season’s produce deliveries to CSA members (which continued until July 2021) began on November 27th in 2020. A third of the farms constituting the Jardin Jesuita collective had been ready to contribute produce, and lead farmer Juan Batista predicted that the crops would soon be coming on stream from the remaining eight farms in the collective.
The number of members in the subscriber community is 40, the highest seasonal count since CSAs began in December 2016. Deliveries are made to 40-50 households in Loreto, Nopolo and Puerto Escondido of whom the large majority are expats living in downtown Loreto. Even before the farms came into full production, many members expressed interest in buying extra food baskets to donate for pandemic relief.
It is no surprise, but notable, that the number of vegan members is growing. From different farms and at different parts of the season, the producers will contribute melons, oranges, sour oranges for marinades, tangerines, kumquats, vanilla lemons (sweet lemon), limes, guavas, pomegranates, roma tomatoes, regular green beans, cucumbers, gooseneck zucchini, Italian basil, sage, cilantro, nopal, bok choy, green swiss chard, spinach, broccoli, butter lettuce, arugula, green onions, red beets, white onions, and radishes. As well, having enough income saved from the previous season, orchardists were able to harvest 450 gallons of Mission Olives, their highest yield since production of olives stopped 7 years ago because the weather was too hot for olive production.
On the supply side—levels reached, new challenges to rise to
Until 2020, the involvement in CSAs of the Keep Loreto Magical Foundation was intensive, as newly committed farmers relied on Foundation staff not only for promoting CSA membership but also coaching them in the management side of growing crops for a subscription market: that is, when to prepare the farm, why and how to meet consumers, what consumers expect and how to meet those expectations, how to follow COVID-19 protocols, and how to manage and document their finances.
New challenges in 2020 included farmers’ skepticism about the need to protect themselves and their visitors from possible Covid-19 infection. The reality of the pandemic was not understood for many weeks after CSA members began to alert farmers to it—not until Loretanos died from the virus. Once it did, precautions prevented Foundation staff from marking the season’s kickoff with producers and consumers at the San Javier gardens, a blow to our team spirit. Meanwhile, the pandemic had affected the supply chain for certain vegetable seeds (special varieties in particular). It also put a damper on volunteer recruitment for important tasks such as Spanish-to-English translation.
Recurrent issues are matching the harvest size, variety and and quality to the size and standards of the membership and assuring that the produce is delivered on the day set for members to pick up their baskets. The timing of farmers’ harvest delivery took some tweaking.
The momentum continues
The CSA membership group addressed how to replace plastic bags for transport of leafy greens. A larger canvas bag has been introduced, although quantities are not yet sufficient for all members.
Five consumers extended the period of their payment for a weekly basket after Nov 2019 into December 2020, supporting non-stop production. This was for a small assured market, but it has encouraged producers in San Javier to prepare for productivity in all weathers and seasons.
Farmers’ successes that gave results early in the season were:
improved time management
improved presentation and quality of items
a professional level of care taken with the tracking and dispensing of the subscriber fees (50,000 pesos for the first half of the season) that are now deposited directly into Luis Bastida’s bank account – this has increased to 500,000 pesos prepaid to the end of the season July 2021.
““CSAs have brought about increase in the general demand for local and fresh produce. There is an all-time high of purchases from Ricardo Fuerte’s Rancho Tiombo and from Ricardo’s family in Rancho San Felipe at the Saturday market and the Nopolo market. Like Ricardo and his family, Jorge Magdaleno and his family complement the harvests of other farmers with varieties suited to the soil and weather conditions of their fields. The Magdaleno family offers its produce at the Nopolo market, and all the farmers wish they had more to sell!””
Next steps for the co-ordination team
Supporting a different farmer farther into the areas around San Javier where the jobs might otherwise come from environmentally destructive open pit mining
Guiding a new group of neighbours in downtown Loreto, about 10 families, that want to do mini-gardens for interchange of produce.
Continuing to publish a short version of the Jardin Jesuita story on social media groups (more than 50 groups in English and Spanish). Luis and the farmers of San Javier are well known now.
Inviting ranchers to come together and watch the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground, which shows how permaculture methods that benefit the soil can replace tradition of plowing fields and releasing needed soil carbon into the air as an unwanted greenhouse gas.
A cultural gap not yet crossed
Crops well suited to the area such as nopal are not usually eaten by the CSA members, so full value for non-Mexicans requires that the program offer recipes and tips, even for such foods as green onions, chiles and pomegranates that northern supermarkets carry. So far, it has not been possible to organize food tastings that might nurture consumers’ interest in learning how to use ingredients that flourish in local gardens and are eaten by local people: radish leaves, different types of cactus, chiles, different type of desert roots like chaya and devil’s claw, or the red berries of frutilla.
Long-term prospects
More than 80 persons have been the customers of Jardin Jesuita since the Foundation started recording sales in November 2018. The potential is high for improvement in the quality of produce and the continued growth of demand for fresh, local groceries. The Bastida family have good prospects for keeping their heirloom seed crops in production; the farmers jointly can hope to create future gainful employment for the youth of the Sierra La Giganta.
