Jesse Boynton Payne’s community supported agriculture model is like most other farmers; delivering baskets of freshly harvested produce to those who have subscribed. But it also has a twist that I have never heard of before.
Payne is “renting” out vacant land in the city of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and paying the “rent” to the land owner in weekly baskets of produce. 2008 was the first year he tried it on 6,000 square feet of land limiting his boxes of produce to the landlords and in 2009 he is “renting” more land and offering his CSA baskets of produce to non-land owners too.
Payne called his urban CSA growing project the VegetablePatch.ca. He says his goal is to promote organic living within the urban center of Ottawa. He wants to create beautiful organic vegetable gardens on unused vacant land. He sees it as promoting a sense of community when a garden is created out of barren vacant land.
His goal for 2009 is to have 50 members in his urban CSA.
Click here for a RealAudio podcast of an interview with Jesse Payne (podcast needs the free RealAudio Player for Mac or PC…available here).
Photo credit: VegetablePatch.ca
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