11/29/23 Newsletter: Making food accessible - SFF one of first small farms to get online EBT for CSA
Monday was a big day as we went LIVE with online EBT/SNAP abilities for our CSA. Although the ability to pay online with EBT has been legally allowed for two years, it is such an onerous process, only large retailers have been able to reach those customers. We are one of the first small farms in the USA to achieve this!
Local, nutrient dense food in our mind is a right, not a privilege… although in our screwed up food system where food is undervalued that is rarely the case. We have the goal of at least 10% of our CSA membership being SNAP customers in 2024 and more beyond. Since 2014, we have had a grant through a few non-profit partners (currently Petaluma Bounty and the Ecology Center) that covers 50% of the cost of CSA boxes for anyone paying with EBT. We also coordinate with Catholic Charities to help us manage the program.
SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is a program of the FNS (Food and Nutrition Service) of the USDA to reduce poverty and food insecurity. In CA it’s also known as CalFresh and EBT is the mechanism through which people receive these benefits.
Farmer Elizabeth is by training a Public Health Nurse trained both in Peace Corps/West Africa and with dual Masters degrees from Johns Hopkins Schools of Public Health and Nursing. In 2016, I (Elizabeth) transitioned from working at the Sonoma County Public Health Department to being a full time farmer. In my mind, farming is public health. Farming nutrient dense veggies and educating customers and future farmers is nutrition education. Also practicing and furthering Carbon Farming is a broader scope solution to Climate Change which is a Public Health issue.
Prior to transitioning to full time farming, I became a fellow of the Sonoma County Leadership Institute for Ecology and Economy. As a group project, I worked with other fellows, the now director of Petaluma Bounty (Suzi Grady) and the founder of Farm to Pantry (Melita Love) to get our farm certified to take EBT (via a card reader). We did this so we could offer EBT. This was a pioneering pilot project working with the state to utilize grants that were otherwise available to farmers' markets. We created a step-by-step guide for farms that has since been adopted by several non-profits to help farmers access EBT machines.
Since we started using our billing software CSAware in 2020,, I have been asking them about the possibility of getting online EBT. Our efforts ramped up a year ago. We had our Letter of Intent in to the FNS Jan 5th of this year. Really a year! We had dozens of meetings and countless emails with FNS, CSAware and Forage (a payments company that helps merchants accept SNAP). CSAware has put so much time into this with our farm because they have many farms also wanting these services but our farm is legally relatively simple (Elizabeth and Paul own the farm, Elizabeth and Paul own the land, Elizabeth manages the CSA). Many farms working on food justice with many SNAP members are non-profits or collaborations and getting approval through the red tape of the USDA is onerous for them. So, again, SFF is testing out a pilot program of the USDA and FNS to allow CSAs to accept online EBT payments… and hopefully thousands of SNAP Customers through many CSAs will eventually benefit. This is why we’re excited about our hard work!
Although we’re technically live, Elizabeth is still in meetings getting things to work right. We hope to be doing our first charges next CSA and then really utilizing it in 2024. We still have a waiting list, but in 2024 we will be bringing in more SNAP customers. This will streamline the work (currently there are about 10 extra steps compared with non-SNAP customers).
Now, most of you are not SNAP customers. This will not affect you. You will notice a few minor changes in our website but they won’t apply to you. You will notice all applicable items in the stores will say SNAP Eligible and when you finalize a purchase and it asks you how to pay it will have a new option.
If you know of anyone who could benefit, please send them our way!
Cold on the Farm this week
It’s been cold the last few days. Our valley bottom gets REALLY cold, one of the colder places in the county. Our bottom fields were in the low 20s the Sat-Monday nights and at least one night we were below 32 for over 12 hours. This isn’t abnormal, we generally have a handful of nights every November and December with lows in the high teens or low 20s, more in drought years when there is less insulating cloud cover. More sun = more cold.
Generally our crops are looking good. Delicate crops were covered or are in our hoop houses. Prior frosts helped get the plants ready for this. What would have been worse is a heat wave preceding these cold temps.
The crops that were hit the hardest in your boxes are the Cauliflower and Broccoli. You might find little brown spots on the crowns. We are composting the worst. These are just little spots where they froze and then dethawed. Cut around them and the rest of the crowns are delicious.
Generally winter crops have richer flavors after a frost. This is because as plants are protecting themselves from damage, they increase sugar content in their bodies. This makes it harder for the water in the cells to freeze. When it does freeze, the ice crystals puncture cell walls. This is what causes the necrosis/tissue death. Plants like tomatoes do not know at all how to protect themselves in this way. Plants like Brassicas can be very adept at it, but the fruit (Cauliflower or Broccoli crowns) less so.
Produce Notes & Recipes
This Week’s Box
Arugula
Pea Shoots
Cauliflower (SR) OR Broccoli (WC)
Butterball (Front Porch) OR
Queen Jessica Potatoes (Stemple Creek)
Music Hard Neck Garlic (SWSF)
Parsley
Family: Mini Romaines & Cabbage
This week’s Arugula is again a first cut and of small leaves. We generally cut our Arugula slightly larger but it just hasn’t grown so it’s a little smaller in leaf and lighter in weight. It is more tender. We had some confusion with members last time we had Arugula on the difference between Arugula and Baby Arugula. We recognize that stores only sell baby these days so some people are not used to full sized crops. We grow the former so we can get a nutrient dense good sized crop for you. It does mean that they have a stronger flavor but growing larger crops rather than smaller baby crops (also milder in nutrition) is not our preference for soil health or human health. You will see our lettuce mix is larger, our mustard mixes, our desire for head lettuces and so forth.
This morning, Sarah (who packed your boxes) said if she got this box, she says she would make Smashed Potatoes on a bed of Arugula (probably fresh, but maybe wilted).
Crispy Garlic Butter Parmesan Smashed Potatoes (CafeDelites)
2 lbs Potatoes (you have 1.75 so adjust a touch)
Olive oil
3 Tbs melted butter
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 Tbs fresh chopped Parsley
Salta nd black pepper
2 Tbs Parmesan Cheese
Pre-heat oven to broil, medium high-heat (400˚F).
Place potatoes in a large pot of salted water. Bring to boil; cook, covered for 30-35 min or until just fork-tender. Drain.
Lightly grease a large baking sheet. Arrange potatoes onto the sheet and use a potato masher to LIGHTLY flatten the potatoes in one piece (not to hard or they will end up mashed).
Mix together the butter, garlic and parsley. Pour the mixture over each potato. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and lightly spray with olive oil.
Broil until they are golden and crispy (~10-15 min). Remove from oven, sprinkle over with parmesan cheese and return to the oven until the choose is melted.
This week’s Music Hard Neck Garlic is from Farmers Birgit and Erik who are the new biodynamic farmers at Summerfield School and Farm. The moved out to become the school farmers in July and had just harvested their large garlic crop in upstate New York at their commercial organic Blue Heron Farm and brought much of it with them. This is the first time we’ve gotten a crop for CSA grown from so far away, but we’re supporting them in learning local resources and growing conditions. As such we wanted to offer them a market for their garlic. Music Garlic is a Hard Neck Garlic. Most supermarket garlic is Soft Neck. Hard necks typically have thicker, more brittle skin (easier to peal), generally fewer, larger cloves and richer flavor. Soft Necks are milder and have a longer shelf life. As mentioned in the newsletter a couple weeks ago, we planted 400 feet (over 3000 plants) of garlic also from them. This is Chesnok Red which you can currently find in the Add-On store and hopefully we will have a bounty of it for you next year!
The Potatoes in this week’s box are a mix. Classic Boxes have the last of our Butterball Potatoes from Front Porch Farm. We needed to use these up as they store the least well (and although we asked them to keep the potatoes dirty so they store well, they couldn’t help themselves and washed them). Families are getting Queen Jessica Potatoes from Stemple Creek Ranch. Stemple Creek is a regenerative and organic ranch focusing on beef, pork and lamp but Rancher Loren at Stemple Creek Ranch is trialing growing these potatoes. He chose Queen Jessica from a line of British Queen Potatoes because his late sister Jessica breed them. They were dry farmed and they're hoping to grow potatoes as a way to do some minimal disruption in their otherwise undisturbed fields.