A customer picks up her customized CSA share from Star Hollow Farms. (Image courtesy of The Washington Post)

If it’s February, it must be time to feel guilty.

It’s not because I’ve broken any new-year diet resolutions. (I don’t make any.) It’s because I will not join a CSA.

Community-supported agriculture programs, or CSAs, traditionally offer a weekly box of seasonal produce from a local farm. Customers pay upfront so the farmer has the cash on hand to buy seeds and equipment, and a guide for what and how much to grow. (Some plans also require that members put in a few hours’ work on the farm.) In exchange they receive an assortment of whatever is ready for harvest that week. That might mean a lot of greens in early spring and an overload of tomatoes in high summer — or if there’s a blight, no tomatoes at all. The benefit, or so they tell me, is that participation supports local growers and teaches families to cook with what Mother Nature provides rather than the global panoply of foods available year-round at the grocery store.

Maybe. But a model designed to serve the producer and not the customer will never be, well, sustainable. And in my experience, CSA customers get the short end of the stick. If I take a vacation in the summer, I pay for food I never receive. If I want more food one week to throw a party and less the next? Tough luck.

The good news, as I write in my latest Smarter Food column for The Washington Post, is that farmers and a new crop of food entrepreneurs are getting the message that, at least some of the time, the customer should have options. Flexible CSA models are sprouting up around the country, proving that subscription services can work for farmers and consumers. Some, dubbed multi-farm CSAs, offer produce from a network of small farms for more variety. Others let customers choose what and how much goes into their weekly box or use pre-paid credit at the farmers market or online.

Do you belong to a CSA? Do you think it’s fabulous? Or too restrictive? Check out my column and let me know what you think.

Local Roots market manager, Jessica Eikleberry. (Ben Leitschuh for The Washington Post)

This month’s Smarter Food focuses on an innovative coop in Wooster, Ohio called Local Roots. The carefully conceived venture solves many of the issues faced by  small farmers and foodies who love them/

Here’s how it works: The coop rents shelf space to local farmers for the bargain price of $10 a month. They drop off once or twice a week. But, unlike at a farmers market, they don’t have to stand there and sell their wares. Instead, customers shop as they would at a grocery store. They can buy milk from grass-fed cows, eggs, locally baked walnut bread and produce from dozens of farmers but still check out at a single cash register, using cash, a check, a credit card, even food stamps.

Launched two years ago in a renovated warehouse off Wooster’s main drag, the market is thriving. On a recent visit, the shelves were stocked with potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, arugula, nine varieties of apples, grass-fed milk, jam, maple syrup and locally milled flour. And this is the slow season.

Let’s hope this savvy model catches on elsewhere.

As Frank Brigsten, a renowned New Orleans chef and Nacio customer, told me: “The shrimping industry in America has been struggling for a long while. Lance saw the writing on the wall. He is a visionary in his profession.” (Frank also graciously contributed this delicious recipe for shrimp cornbread.)

Besides being an all-around feel-good story, Nacio is a model for small fisherman in the Gulf. Here’s to hoping many follow in his path.

Courtesy of the Maine Farmland Trust

Interest in small-scale agriculture has soared over the last decade. But it’s still anything but easy for farmers to get in or stay in the game, not least because farmland itself is disappearing. I recently toured Maine, where 75 percent of farmland has vanished since 1950. And what’s left is often worth more as future house lots than as a farm—especially if it has panoramic views of the ocean. According to the Maine Farmland Trust, about 400,000 acres, or about one-third of Maine’s remaining farmland, will be in transition over the next decade as older farmers retire or die.

My latest story on GiltTaste, “How to Save Small Farms” looks at the role of land trusts in keeping farmland in farmers’ hands. These complex and seemingly rather dull legal contract called an agricultural easement. The arrangement, made with a land trust, allows farmers to be paid in return for stripping their land of its development rights – no new subdivisions or shopping malls allowed – and instead keeping it as farmland. As Penny Jordan, whose family helped to settle Cape Elizabeth, outside Portland, says: “We would not have kept the farm, let alone been able to invest in the business, without this.”

There is, of course, much more to learn about land trusts. Vermont has something like 30 percent of its agricultural land in trust. And I hear the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy does great work, too. Got a story about land preservation? Send it along.

That was 23 years ago.

Twenty three years is a long time to hold a grudge. But Jackson, a 44-year-old former tobacco farmer, has reasons to be skeptical. Ever since 1982 when the U.S. government first began to dismantle the system of tobacco subsidies and price guarantees, local growers have been promised one save-the-farmer scheme after another. In the 1980s, it was what folks here refer to as the Great West Virginia Pepper Debacle, when the agriculture extension agents persuaded local farmers to grow bell peppers in such quantities that the bottom fell out of the market. Today, it’s farmers markets and local food. And yet, every year, making a living on the farm just got harder. Jackson now gets $1.75 per pound for his half-runner beans, 25 cents more than he did 10 years ago. In the same time period, the cost of fuel, fertilizer, seeds and his medical insurance has doubled or tripled.

The media likes to divide farmers into two groups: big and small. But in Appalachia, where the series of hills and hollows has prevented many farms from growing to an industrial scale, there’s another, more crucial distinction: old and new. And while it’s easier (and often more fun) to focus on new, young farmers – the goat cheese makers and the folks who specialize in baby amaranth greens — persuading older, experienced farmers to grow and sell food again is key to building sustainable, local food systems.

That’s the lesson that organic farmer Anthony Flaccavento, learned when he helped to found Appalachian Sustainable Development, a co-op of farmers in southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee. The plan, as much as there was one back in 1995, was to take away much of the risk and inconvenience of selling locally. ASD would aggregate and grade the produce and market and distribute it to local grocery stores. Moreover, it would offer a variety of training courses on irrigation systems and organic regulations plus services such as coordinated seed purchases. “Surely we’ll be flooded with farmers,” he remembers thinking. “But the truth of it is, supply is really difficult in our part of the world.”

More than 15 years later, ASD sells to more than 600 regional grocery stores. The key, Flaccavento told me, was convincing old-time farmers to join them. “Our strategy was to get those salt-of-the-earth guys. They gave it a certain degree of instant cred.”

This week, local food advocates in Huntington will make a pitch to their salt-of-the-earth farmers to supply the city’s weekly Fresh Markets. They will talk about pent-up demand for local food, the premium prices that consumers are willing to pay and how keeping the food dollar local will benefit, not only farmers but the whole community. Their case is strong. But whether such words can erase 23 years of heartbreak is an open question.

Seriously, though, this weekend’s conference served up plenty of inspiring stories (rooftop gardens, urban farms) and thoughtful discussions (how can we better cover industrial agriculture so readers really understand the food system?). But what was most inspiring was the clear recognition that reformers must draw new people into the conversation about developing a healthier food system. Deb Eschmeyer, co-founder of Food Corps, urged Edible magazine publishers to get their magazines into local legislative offices — Democrat and Republican. Ralph Loglisci, of the Monday Campaigns, talked about behavior change theory, which suggests that only immediate self-interest — not calls to save the planet — will  lure new supporters to the cause. Joan Dye Gussow, an advocate of local food for more than 30 years and the conference’s keynote speaker, stated it most simply: “We need to find ways to make agriculturally ignorant Americans give a damn.”

This is what we are trying to discover in our work in Huntington. What do Americans outside the wealthy enclaves of Brooklyn, Berkeley and, of course, Santa Barbara where spring begins in January, care about? What will motivate them to make change? There is no one answer, and what resonates will vary from place to place. Discovering the answer is essential as the food “movement” takes its next steps.

Shagbark sells locally milled flour at the Athens farmers market

On the latest episode of my podcast, Smart Food, I try to get to the bottom of it with Leslie Schaller, who for 25 years has helped to build a vibrant local food system in Athens, Ohio. On a recent visit to the Athens’ farmers market, we found — and purchased — local sorghum, locally milled spelt flour (pictured), cheese, bread and one giant blue hubbard squash, which is slated to become risotto this week. But as program director for ACEnet, the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks, Leslie has done more than establish the market. She’s helped to establish a commercial kitchen for food entrepreneurs and distribution for their products at local restaurants, even the local Kroger.

The result? Athens, just 90 minutes from Huntington, where we live, feels more like a small town in Vermont than one in Appalachia. Leslie’s story and the lessons Athens can teach the city of Huntington will certainly be part of our book. Listen in here for a preview.

Or, better, send me your tips and tricks for building a local food community. I’ll post a list with the results.

Chuck Talbott with his pigs

Who said we’d go hungry in West Virginia?

It was our fourth night here. We drove out to the “holler” to see Chuck Talbott and Nadine Perry. I had written about Chuck and his efforts to launch an all-American charcuterie business, Woodlands Pork, three years ago for the Washington Post. This is harvest time for Chuck, always a mixture of excitement – the meat is just what they have been hoping for – and sadness as they say goodbye to the pigs they have come to love.

Chuck and Nadine knew we were coming to research our book on how and if Huntington can change its food culture. But we ran into them sooner than expected. Tuesday night was the third of three lectures on sustainable agriculture at the local university, Marshall. (Chuck was giving an overview of his work and we also heard from Dr. James Farmer – what a name! – about the relationship of income to local-food purchasing.)

Jay Denham carving the cured shoulder

The house has come a long way since I visited three years ago; it has insulation and more walls, for one thing. And it also has more residents. Along with Chuck and Nadine, two young interns, Chelsea and Kate, are living there. So is Jay Denham, a former chef and champion of Kentucky products, who is working with Chuck, and Nadine’s son, Ben. Also visiting were two chefs from the Cincinnati area, Justin and Kyle. The chefs did all the cooking. We drank vodka tonics and cider-bourbon cocktails out of mason jars and snacked on the cured shoulder, pork terrine and what Ben called “chicken butter,” a.k.a chicken liver pate made from Michel Richard’s “faux gras” recipe. Good deal.

Woodlands Pork loin

Smoking the pressa, a much beloved cut in Spain, took a few hours. So did roasting the loin which came with an eight-inch fat cap.

But the wait was worth it. The meal was like Thanksgiving, without all the traditional and often obligatory side dishes. And though this meat was made to cure, it makes mean fresh pork. The loin was tender and super porky. And Jay’s rice is a keeper. You melt pork fat in a sauce pan, then toast pecans in it and then the rice. After a few minutes, add fresh cider and cook until the rice is tender. Outrageously good.

We don’t expect to eat like this every night – though wouldn’t that be nice? But it’s really exciting to find such good food so fast. The chefs are going to hook us up with a local chicken and egg purveyor and some local beef. And, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get some Woodlands Pork for the winter.

And just for fun, here are some more pictures of Chuck’s great pigs.

That's some pig

Woodlands Pork pigs

“This would benefit poor children who would no longer have to eat a meal seasoned by shame, and it would benefit middle-income children for whom healthy school meals could become the norm. It would benefit our overstressed, time-staved working families by taking one more task, and one more parent-battleground, off the table. It would benefit food service staff, who could turn their attention from accounting to cooking. And in the long run, it would benefit us through savings in health care costs and better educational outcomes.”

How much would this cost? Using Congressional Budget Office figures, Poppendieck does some back of the envelope calculations and determines that universal lunch would total an extra $12 billion annually. If that sounds like a lot, it is. (President Obama has asked for $10 billion for all child nutrition programs over the next decade in his current budget.) But, notes Poppendieck, it is also the amount that the president’s budget specified for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan each month in 2009.

“I understand that we cannot simply, miraculously, redirect the expenditure from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to school food. My intent is to give some sense of the size of the funding increment that would be needed … and to point out that there do seem to be ways of ‘finding’ money if we really want to.”

The argument for universal school lunch is a convincing one. Finding the money? According to my sources on the Hill, it’s a political non-starter. Twelve billion a year ends up as closer to $150 billion over 10 years. Obama’s jobs bill might total $100 billion. The Republican prescription drug benefit, which was supposed to lock in the senior vote for GOP in perpetuity, was $300 billion. And remember, kids don’t vote. Still, Poppendieck’s ideas and idealism should inform and stimulate debate as Congress moves forward to reauthorize school lunch program and Michelle Obama launches her all-star childhood obesity initiative. (The announcement is Feb. 9. Stay tuned here and on All We Can Eat, the WaPo Food blog.)