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Only a few days after their barn was destroyed by fire, (“Fire halts popular CSA,” Jan. 14) Pete’s Greens’ Facebook page listed eight events people and businesses have organized to help rebuild the barn. Pete’s Greens is a business, not a human service organization. So, why is it that so many of us feel compelled to help get that barn back up?

No farm is just a business. Especially not Pete’s. Pete’s Greens demonstrates that Vermont agriculture is a growth industry. Pete Johnson delivers bundles of farm products, called CSA shares, direct to consumers in four counties, and delivers his greens to stores, restaurants and cooperatives in Boston, New York and Vermont. As with other successful farms in Vermont, Pete’s is powered by long work days, by turning the waste into resource and by a tinker-til-it’s-right ethos.

I’m among the many Vermonters who think and talk about how best to support a working landscape, farm viability and sustainability, food security, soil fertility, and access to healthy farm produce for all Vermonters. All the talk has no grounding in reality without people like Pete (and Meg, Clement, David, Rachel, Marie, Christa, Mark, Jacques, Pauline, Chuck and the farmer near you) willing to put in the hours, creativity, discipline, planning and relentless work that it takes to make a living producing food from soil.

Pete has hosted zillions of tours, inspiring aspiring young farmers, and political, philanthropic and business leaders to think differently about where their food comes from and what farming means to our economy. He extends hands grounded in muck to tourists and reporters looking for a neater picture of farming. When one of his employees wanted to grow an extra few rows of greens for delivery to the Vermont Foodbank, Pete encouraged her and eventually that project expanded and became a program of the Foodbank. He uses his CSA delivery route to distribute products from other farms in Vermont and Quebec. He volunteers time at the Center for an Agricultural Economy, to expand access to healthy local farm produce in Caledonia County. His business is an important potential client of the new Food Venture Center.

I have often thought that the initials, CSA, are backwards. It’s not Community-Supported Agriculture. It’s Agriculture-Supported Community. We are a stronger community because of our farms.

So, maybe that’s why so many are doing what they can to help rebuild the barn. The community in CSA is all of us. You can find information about the fire and ways to help at the Pete’s Greens website, www.Petesgreens.com, and Facebook page.
Gaye Symington of Jericho is a former speaker of the Vermont House.