For a box of fresh, locally grown produce, $15 is a small price to pay.
This past fall, Shanna Gong, a first-year sociology graduate student, wanted to support a community-supported agriculture cooperative for graduate students living at UCLA’s Weyburn Terrace apartments.
Gong, who said that the organization and structure of our current food system is unsustainable for the future, finds the cooperative system to be an effective food system that offers both good food and social equity.
“We really have to think about how food isn’t just what’s on our table,” Gong said.
Working with the Graduate Students Association Sustainable Resource Center, Gong made the program a reality. Since the program started, many graduate students and other interested individuals have become members of the South Central Farmers’ Cooperative Community Supported Agriculture, which provides them with locally grown, seasonal and organic produce, Gong said.
Andrea Dinneen, a first-year sociology graduate student, currently volunteers at the program in Weyburn Terrace, ensuring that people pick up their orders on Wednesdays at Weyburn Terrace’s Palm Court courtyard between 4 and 7 in the evenings. Dinneen said supporting the CSA is beneficial for both the environment and society.
“The way our food is grown ““ we have no idea how our food is grown. You can go to a grocery store and buy something, and that process totally insecures how the food is produced (and) people that produce it,” Dinneen said.
“Doing the CSA is really a way to connect with the farmers who are actually producing your food and make sure it’s produced in a sustainable way,” she added.
Nurit Katz, the UCLA sustainability coordinator who founded the Sustainability Resource Center in 2005, encourages students to participate in the cooperative.
“It’s a really great deal. You get a lot of produce that’s fresh and organic and (at) much better prices than you can get at Whole Foods, and you’re definitely supporting the farmers. It’s tasty, and you can get creative and use vegetables you’ve never used before,” Katz said.
The South Central Farmers, who provide the produce for members of the program, started out as a group of farmers in South Central Los Angeles who farmed on a 14-acre urban garden at 41st and Alameda streets.
Since being evicted from their land and losing their community garden, the farmers have relocated to other areas, Gong said.
Currently, the CSA members here at UCLA receive their produce from the South Central Farmers in Bakersfield, where they are currently sharecropping on another farmer’s land, Gong added.
For Dinneen, the $15 weekly CSA boxes, even when divided with a friend, provide her with two week’s worth of fresh produce.
For the current season, boxes have contained various greens such as kale, chard, buttercrunch lettuce and romaine, and other vegetables such as carrots and beets.
The South Central Farmers’ goals appealed to Gong because of their low prices, commitment to providing produce for local communities and disinterest in large profits, she said. Also, with the CSA’s different pricing options, cooperative members can pay more money to buy a whole produce box for others from more disadvantaged communities, Gong said.
Gong added that for some cooperative members, the South Central Farmers provide the produce for their communities.
“The South Central Farmers are the Whole Foods, and they are the Trader Joe’s. They’re the ones that are providing that service,” Gong said.
“I think a lot of the farms don’t have the same commitment to providing for low-income communities like South Central Farms does, so in that sense, they’re not really focused on drawing huge profit margins. So they try to keep the prices as low as possible because of the communities they want to feed,” Gong added.
With some undergraduate students already supporters of the CSA, Gong hopes that other students will take the initiative to get involved and bring the CSA program to their apartments, ultimately bringing a healthier food environment to UCLA.
Weyburn Terrace, University Apartments South and UCLA’s Office of Residential Life have become local drop-off zones for the CSA boxes. Anybody interested in purchasing a box of fresh produce can go to the South Central Farms Web site and order online with PayPal.
With convenient pricing options, consumers can buy boxes weekly, monthly, or even for six months.