By Marian Burros • Photo by Kristen Taylor

With names like Boston Bounty Bucks, Fresh Checks, and Double Dollars, programs at a few farmers markets across the country—including some in the Capital foodshed—offer economically vulnerable people a deal they cannot refuse: as much as $20 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables for $10.

Double-voucher incentive programs are beginning to take off across the country with help from private foundations, local governments, and now even the federal government.

Just for Yuppies?

Just in the nick of time. As farmers markets spring up nationwide—there were 5,274 last year, double the number in 2000—the buzz that poor people cannot afford to shop at them grows louder.

Those who run the markets don’t deny it. “We know sometimes the food is not as affordable,” said Bernadine Prince, co-director of the nine FreshFarm Markets in metropolitan Washington. “The whole idea of Double Dollars has made food more affordable. We hope the people will come and get fresh food and make it a habit.”

“Double vouchers are exploding,” said Gus Schumacher, a former commissioner of agriculture in Massachusetts and an undersecretary of agriculture in the Clinton administration who has been involved in making farmers markets accessible to low-income shoppers since 1986, a plan that also gets more money into the hands of small farmers.

The double vouchers are available to anyone on food stamps, now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and to anyone who participates in the supplemental food program for women, infants, and children at nutritional risk (WIC). It is the latest effort to get people with limited incomes to shop at farmers markets. There are already programs that provide additional vouchers for fruits and vegetables to seniors eligible for food stamps and to WIC participants.

Twice as Nice

The first market in the Capital foodshed to offer double vouchers—and also one of the first in the country—was the Crossroads Farmers Market on the border of Takoma Park and Langley Park, Maryland.

According to Michelle Dudley, Crossroads’ executive director, the market began to offer double vouchers in 2007. By 2009, it was offering $10 for the first visit and $5 each visit. The program was so successful that it ran out of the money it had received from the city of Takoma Park and private foundations, so it had to continue raising additional money on a weekly basis in order to continue the project. “In June and July, our numbers were up over 300 percent because of the coupons,” said Dudley, “but we couldn’t keep up, and in August we offered only $3. Fewer and fewer people came. It was a huge deterrent.”

Dudley said the market also surveyed its customers. “People told us they wouldn’t be coming to the market if it weren’t for those benefits. They also said they can taste the difference. Senior citizens in particular express gratitude on a weekly basis.”

Market by Market

All too often, people eligible for these programs are not aware of them: Generally there has not been enough outreach from the farmers markets or from local government agencies publicizing their availability.

Just as the locavore movement began small and scattered, double vouchers are making their way on to the national scene slowly, market by market. Helping the poor shop at farmers markets is a recent phenomenon and there are still a number of barriers.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, for example, the city refused to sign the necessary government papers in 2009, so double vouchers won’t be available until later this year.

But there are problems at every level. Unlike grocery stores, which have been doing business with food stamp recipients for years, it was only five years ago that farmers markets began accepting food stamps, and even today, not all of them do: It’s up to each individual market whether it will buy the equipment necessary to accept them.

Technologically Challenged

EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) systems, now used in place of paper food stamps, are dependent on wireless technology equipment. A food-assistance recipient must swipe what is essentially a debit card in order to access his or her benefits (aka food stamps). Few recipients even know they can use their food stamps at participating farmers markets.

With WIC produce vouchers, each state is allowed to decide whether the vouchers can be used at farmers markets. No special equipment is required to process these vouchers, but, again, it is up to individual vendors whether or not to accept them.

For the double-voucher program, it is up to each market to decide whether to participate. Many of them simply do not have the funds it takes to match benefits. Farmers markets, which are often run by volunteers, may be interested in offering double vouchers but lack the resources for fundraising and administering the program.

Up until now the U.S. Department of Agriculture has not made it any easier. It requires that market organizers get special waivers to offer the double vouchers. In addition, grocery stores receive the EBT equipment for nothing, whereas farmers markets have to pay about $1,000 for one. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan is aware of the financial barriers to both expanding the EBT system and offering vouchers to make those benefits go even further and is providing more money to reduce the burden on the markets. She said the agency is also working to simplify the process for being certified.

Nonprofits in the Lead

The biggest mover in the double-voucher program is the Wholesome Wave Foundation, of which Schumacher is chairman. The foundation gave seed money to 10 markets in four states in 2008 and another 55 markets in 10 states in 2009. This year it will support over 100 markets in 20 states.

Across the country other foundations as well as city and state governments are following the foundation’s lead. Even the federal government is helping out with grants. USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Services gave Massachusetts $15,000 for double vouchers and provided California with $500,000 to promote improved access for low-income residents, including double vouchers.

The program is so new that it is difficult to track how many additional markets with some form of double vouchers exist. Besides the markets funded by Wholesome Wave, some markets in New York, Maine, Ohio, Colorado, and Oregon have found ways to offer such incentives.

In addition to Crossroads, a few other Washington-area markets are offering double vouchers—the Silver Spring market in Maryland, the Spotsylvania County market in Virginia, and both the H Street NE market and the Vermont Avenue (White House) market in the district.

A Win-Win Situation

For areas where there is not enough business for a farmers market, such as inner cities, Wholesome Wave has come up with an innovative way to deliver fruits and vegetables. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, a mobile veggie van brings local produce sold at half price to four inner-city neighborhoods. The mobile unit has been doing $3,000 in sales in a four-hour period. The produce doesn’t always look perfect because it isn’t graded, it isn’t waxed, and it doesn’t come in a box—but it’s fresh.

Wholesome Wave’s Schumacher says if more people on food stamps and the WIC program are encouraged to buy at farmers markets, they will eat healthier food while small farmers can make more money. “If 1 percent of the money in the national food stamp program is spent at farmers markets and 15 percent of the new WIC monthly vouchers are spent at farmers markets, by the end of two or three years that would mean $150 to $200 million for small farmers,” he said. “ I think that’s an achievable vision.”

SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Renamed in late 2008, this federal program was previously known as the Food Stamp Program. The stamps have been replaced with an electronic card that resembles a debit card.

EBT Electronic Benefit Transfer

SNAP clients access their benefits using the EBT system instead of receiving a cash payment or stamps. When purchasing food, they swipe a card with a metallic strip and enter a personal identification number into a point-of-sale machine, just as customers do when using credit or debit cards. The machine that reads the cards requires electricity and an Internet connection.

WIC Women, Infants & Children

This federal program is designed to get healthful food to low-income women and children at risk of not receiving proper nutrition. Recipients are pregnant women and recent mothers (up to six months after birth), infants, and children up to the age of five. Benefits, which vary according to the age of the children and the mother’s condition, allow recipients to buy items such as milk, produce, dairy products, and peanut butter.

Scrip

Because EBT systems are expensive and because electricity and phone lines are not readily available at most farmers market sites, most markets have only one point-of-sale machine. To make this work, the market will issue a scrip, or an alternative currency. The SNAP client swipes his or her card and receives scrip for the amount desired or, if the market is doubling benefits, scrip worth twice that amount. Clients then buy produce from market vendors with scrip, although they do not receive change in return. Market organizers later exchange vendors’ scrip for cash.

By Joel Salatin

Anyone who knows me knows I’m an ardent supporter of farmers markets and community supported agriculture (CSA). Direct-marketing models linking farmers to buyers are as varied as entrepreneurial ingenuity. Generally, I’m in favor of anything other than nameless, faceless, opaque industrial food–based supermarkets.

But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to move this heritage-based food movement beyond 1 percent market penetration. Our nearest farmers market, founded nearly 20 years ago, has not yet had cumulative sales in its entire history equal to our farm’s gross sales in one year. I’m not bragging—I’m just pointing out how tiny the local food network is. So what’s holding it back?

I think we need to appreciate the secret of supermarkets’ success. When we compare their features to those of farmers markets and CSAs, I think we can begin to see why truly local food is not purchased more widely. And perhaps rather than start more farmers markets, we need to channel our efforts elsewhere.

Farmers markets are destination places. Normally, customers have to make a special trip within a narrow window of time to patronize them. CSAs require that consumers plan ahead, take produce they may not like, and drive out to a pickup place. And seldom do either of these venues offer a complete menu: They typically lack dairy, meat, poultry, and processed items like noodles, soups, and heat-n-eat convenience foods. And both of these venues require additional trips (read: precious time away from the farm) for farmers to attend the venue.

Compare that to a Kroger or Giant store. They are open 24/7 so shoppers can shop at their convenience. They have a huge diversity of both raw and processed product, including dairy and meat. Farmers don’t have to make a special trip to take their wares there because their products enter the food system from centralized pickup points, whether it be a grain elevator, livestock sale barn, or processing facility. In the case of processors like Tyson and Smithfield, farmers under contract don’t have to go anywhere because the company comes and picks up the chickens or hogs. And the store’s cashiers are always busy, which helps justify the overhead spent on them.

Why can’t we take these basic supermarket features and re-create them on a local level? What would such a model look like? First, it would be on a main drag, located preferably next to Walmart or in the retail commercial district where people go all the time anyway to shop. The hours would be extended enough to catch people when they are already out and about—going to and coming home from work, volleyball, and ballet practice. Customers could pop in and shop conveniently.

Farmers could come by with their wares when they are already out and about running errands. The ideal venue would have a commercial kitchen with a diner on one end so patrons could enjoy a meal. The kitchen would be used to create processed foods, from noodles to heavy soups, utilizing raw items from the store no longer at the peak of freshness. Pot pies and frozen pizzas would offer opportunities to salvage food before it spoils, creating an in-house safety net for the farmers’ items.

The whole idea here is to scale down and create proximity in all the food components that currently occupy mammoth single-use or single-item processing plants around the country. A community-scaled processing facility like the one I just described should be able to handle many different items, not just green beans. That leverages the stainless steel, walk-in coolers, and staff expertise across several food items. This way even a small processing facility can be as efficient overall as a huge single-item plant doing just green beans or tomato soup.

One of the biggest expenses in specialty stores is staffing the cash registers, so cashiers need to stay busy. In this new model, the cash register would service the locally supplied market as well as the diner—similar to Cracker Barrel’s store-and-restaurant concept—so it would stay busy with the multiple sales streams. And the diversity in real-time purchasing allows customers to cherry-pick, buying only what they want.

Put them together and offer real-time diversified buying options to customers. The one-stop shop model works. We just need to figure out what a truly transparent, localized one-stop shop looks like.

Once we figure that out, heritage-based food can penetrate much farther and deeper into the marketplace. As wonderful as farmers markets and CSAs are—and as crucial as it is that consumers have the opportunity to meet the people growing their food—I don’t think they will ever yield the kind of marketplace penetration needed to fundamentally change our food system. We have to make it easier for people to buy local, not harder. The future can’t be the limited options of either extreme: farmers markets and CSAs or Walmart.

Of course, the other conundrum related to further market penetration is how successful “integrity food” operations get sucked into the industrial system, like when Walmart calls and wants your product. Is Walmart really where integrity food should go? Is there something about that arrangement that actually compromises integrity food? I don’t have answers for all these questions, but I am passionate about trying to localize, to increase transparency. As discussed in the film Food, Inc., whether or not Stonyfield has compromised since its products were picked up by Walmart is subject to debate. But why should Virginians eat Stonyfield yogurt bought at Walmart? Why can’t folks in Virginia eat Virginia-made yogurt that comes from Virginia-raised grass-fed cows—bought at convenient, locally operated stores?
I’m sure some of my friends who are die-hard farmers market supporters are ready to string me up at this point, but I have tried several of those market venues over the years and found them frustrating for a lot of reasons. Yes, farmers markets will be here for a long time. But a lot of folks don’t want to pay a bunch of different vendors, and they enjoy a bit more shopping anonymity.

Being able to dash into a store that’s on your way home from soccer practice, fill up a cart with the specific locally produced and processed items you want, and pay for it all at a single cash register—now that’s an idea that should be explored.

By Walter Nicholls • Photographs by Molly McDonald Peterson

In the late 1990s, organic farmer Beverly Morton Billand had what she calls “my crazy idea.” She took the otherwise farmers market–bound vegetables and herbs, grown on her 25-year-old, 40-acre farm in Lovettsville, Virginia, and launched the quintessential farm-to-table experience. “At the time, I knew of no one in this country doing such a thing,” says Billand. “We were a first.”

A Setting Like No Other
In a tent outside her kitchen door, on a gorgeous, fertile bluff over the Potomac River in western Loudoun County, Billand opened The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm. She served not only the bounty from her own fields, but also foods sourced from regional farmers who shared her vision for sustainable agriculture. This eco-pioneer didn’t stop there.

Along the way, and in order to bring as many people as possible to Patowmack, Billand started an on-farm retail market for value-added products, such as dilly beans, salsas, and pesto. Farm tours, cooking classes, and wine dinner partnerships with local vineyards brought more and more people up the steep drive, where visitors can see the vistas of three states—West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia—in the distance even as the farm that produces the ingredients in their dinner is at their feet.

Guests continue to come in every season to what is now a permanent, 110-seat glass conservatory for a sensory nirvana. Eagles soar overhead, trains whistle in the distance, and modern American cuisine bursts with just-picked flavor and aroma.

A Few Steps from Farm to Fork
Just rewards for more than a decade of hard work came on January 22, when the Patowmack crew, including executive chef Christopher Edwards, traveled to the James Beard Foundation in New York City for a farm-to-table dinner executed by Edwards. On the five-course menu were two of his signature dishes: a delicate cannelloni of Cherry Glen goat cheese with roasted beets and aged balsamic vinegar as well as an earthy, hay-smoked potato gnocchi with potato-skin consommé. Edwards took Virginia wines to the New York dinner, including Fabbioli Cellars 2007 Chambourcin, Corcoran Vineyards 2008 Viognier, and Sunset Hills Vineyard 2007 Reserve Cabernet Franc.

“For me, after all this time—this recognizes our passion for organic and seasonal cuisine,” says Billand. “For Chris, it’s an opportunity to be recognized as a top chef.”

Edwards’s credentials come from a rarified rung of restaurants here and abroad. Edwards, who came to Patowmack in early 2009, trained as an apprentice at the acclaimed and cutting-edge molecular gastronomy temple Restaurant El Bulli in Roses, Spain. From there, he joined noted chef Fabio Trabocchi at the now-shuttered Maestro in McLean, Virginia, and later went with Trabocchi to Fiamma in New York. “From El Bulli, I took away a love of woodland foraging for select ingredients, like the discovery of a wealth of Patowmack’s wild purple nettle, which has a sweet, minty flavor,” says Edwards. Come late April, he will take to the hills in search of morel mushrooms.

Seasonally at Patowmack, nine cultivated acres produce dozens of kinds of herbs and vegetables, including 30 kinds of tomatoes, 20 kinds of peppers, basketfuls of asparagus, assorted berries, and eggs from a flock of free-range chickens. Successive plantings, where crops mature at staggered dates, provide a steady flow of string beans, eggplant, and melons. With a new hoop house in place for winter crops, delicate salad greens are available all year. Garden predators are a problem, but this food show must go on. “We plant enough for everybody—the deer, rabbits, and groundhogs,” jokes Billand.

Executive chef Chris Edwards

For grass-fed Angus beef, the chef relies on Hedgeapple Farm, based in Buckeystown, Maryland. The pork, veal, and chickens are heritage breeds, coming from Ayrshire Farm in Virginia’s Upperville. “For meats, that covers my bases,” he says.

Well Worth the Effort
This year’s plans call for the May opening of an on-site bakery specializing in gluten- and dairy-free cakes, pies, and breads. Says Billand, “We want to draw even more people to the farm.” With outreach in mind and with a nod to first lady Michelle Obama, Patowmack wants to work with local schools on a garden-to-lunchroom project. Billand says students will learn the how-to of the hoe and also gain cooking and proper diet knowledge.

The push for more activity at Patowmack is not only a move to guarantee the farm’s sustainability, but also a response to recessionary spending cutbacks on the part of guests. A luxury for many, Edwards’s five-course prix fixe dinner is $85 per person, without wine, tax, and tip. Recently, an à la carte menu was added, and on Thursdays diners can choose from an assortment of small plates and classic cocktails.
Still, Billand says she is “having a great time” growing Patowmack, all the while supporting local small businesses, farmers, and community organizations. Her challenge is to continually alert the world that her farm-based restaurant is unique and that guests will find the travel effort and expense well worth it. “Could we have more people? Yes,” she says. “But we’re a destination restaurant. People have to think about coming here.”

ACKC, Washington, D.C. & Alexandria, VA

(202) 387-2626 & (703) 635-7917 • www.thecocoagallery.com

C-ville Candy Company, Charlottesville, VA

(434) 962-4284 • www.cvillecandy.com

Chocolate Cravings, Richmond, VA

(804) 363-6873 • www.choccravings.com

Chocolaterie Wanders, Manassas, VA

(866) 792-6337 • www.chocolateriewanders.com

Cocoa Mill, Lexington, VA

(800) 421-6220 • www.cocoamill.com

Gearharts, Charlottesville, VA

(434) 972-9100 • www.gearhartschocolates.com

Pandora Chocolatier, Charlottesville, VA

www.pandorachocolatier.com

Red Rocker Candy, Troy, VA

(434) 589-3649 • www.redrockercandy.com

By Joel Salatin

The words stung.

“You cannot build a single structure on this farm.”

We wanted to build a chick brooder and a small processing shed in order to add pastured broilers to the farm we leased. This new enterprise was essential to making the whole farm viable. But the nonprofit organization policing the easement was adamant: No new construction.

Almost everyone is in favor of preserving green space. How best to do it is another matter. One of the models currently lauded by environmental groups is an easement whereby a landowner voluntarily creates a deed restriction against future development or nonagricultural uses, policed by a trust, in exchange for tax concessions due to the change in real estate value.

Landowners proudly display their easement signs at the farm gate: “Protected forever . . .” Protected from what? Protected from innovation, that’s what. Having dealt with several easements on other farms, I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would sign up for one.

Perhaps the most common easement is the government program known as CREP (Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program), which ostensibly protects riparian areas in exchange for fencing and tree establishment and a 10-year cash payment per acre. On one farm we lease, the landowner signed onto the program and subsequently spent tens of thousands of dollars in her 80/20 cost share arrangement. The water system, which cost well over $100,000, completely failed in its first season.

For some reason, CREP won’t develop ponds, which I consider far and away the most efficient livestock watering containment and storage system since a pond yields aquatic environments, holds runoff from seasonal floods, and doesn’t punch holes in aquifers. Unlike wells—which, in a drought, can stop without notice—ponds are visible, so a farmer can walk out any day and see how much water is available. The other problem is that the government program only pays for nonportable, capital-intensive watering stations that militate against ecological grazing management. (That is, a farmer cannot rotate his herd around his property but must instead keep it near the watering station, to the degradation of the land.) Furthermore, the government-built fences, with their straight lines and square corners, assault the topography.

After the CREP system failed, we went in and built a pond (fenced off from the cattle, of course) and installed a piped underground water system that serves three times the acreage, that has never failed, and that is conducive to rotational grazing—for one-tenth the cost of the government system. The landowner, incensed over the money she wasted in the easement-based system, asked the government agent in charge to come for a tour of our low-cost alternative system. He wouldn’t come. (So much for a spirit of open-mindedness.)

On this farm, we can’t even build a doghouse. The landowners are now quite remorseful that the easement exists. To have a nonfarmer group from 200 miles away telling the landowner what is appropriate according to the easement is like putting an Amish man in charge of nuclear reactor regulations.

On another farm, a young couple wanted to run pastured chickens on their rented farm. But according to the landlord, the easement police considered even portable chicken shelters and eggmobiles to be new construction and therefore inappropriate development. What good is protecting farmland if we don’t protect the farmers and their economic viability on the land?

Building a chick brooder and processing shed, or adding a walk-in cooler for an egg inventory, is not antithetical to farming. Indeed, a house for employees and a pavilion for agritourism dinner entertainment are all pieces of the economic puzzle to keep non-industrial farms viable in our modern day.

One of the distinctive features and appeal of Colonial Williamsburg is the imbedded craft economy surrounding the farmsteads. The blacksmith, woodworker, barrel maker, shingle maker, spinner, and candlemaker found behind the main farmhouse all contribute to the economic viability of the farm.

Economic viability today demands value-adding, which means onfarm infrastructure like you would expect to see in Williamsburg. Too often those policing these easements want to see cows, pretty pastures, and bucolic gambrel barns without realizing that such a landscape never existed sustainably. Real profitable and ecologically sensible working farms had smokehouses, butchering facilities, housing for workers, inventory and distribution centers, and a host of other synergistic enterprises.

One of the main reasons farms have become non-viable today is that they do not include the compatible industry required to keep the money on the farm. Instead, farms have become simply raw commodity production areas that cheaply supply material to valueadded industry offsite. If we are ever going to shake the stranglehold of the industrial food system, we must bring the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers back to our farms.

Ultimately, these easements reduce farm viability and gradually turn Virginia’s pastoral landscape into a wilderness area. That’s probably not the green space folks have in mind. Giving over farm decisions to people who neither farm nor adapt their approaches jeopardizes farmers’ livelihoods. Ultimately, preserving farmers is the only sustainable way to preserve farms.

Internationally acclaimed conference speaker and author Joel Salatin and his family operate Polyface Farms in Augusta County near Staunton, Virginia, producing and direct marketing “salad bar” beef, “pigaerator” pork, and pastured poultry. He is now also co-owner, with Joe Cloud, of T&E Meats in Harrisonburg.

Editor’s note: Many readers were angered by this column. Several letters with this sentiment were published in the Feb./Mar. 2010 issue, which you can read here.

Our response, also published in the Feb./Mar. 2010 issue, is here. We also invite you to read a pro-easement article from our first issue here.

We invite you to post your comments below so that this conversation can continue.

or made locally (but sold online).

• Photos by Sarah Cramer Shields

Links to the websites shown in the gift guide can be found below.

Fred Fred Tattoo Sparrow leather collar $24.99

The Big Bad Woof, Takoma Park, MD

www.thebigbadwoof.com (202) 291-2404

Bamboo compost pail $37.95

Cleverbean, Staunton, VA

www.cleverbean.com (888) 994-9091

Eco-Kids Eco-Paint & Eco-Dough $24/5-pc. tube

Green Nest, Culpeper, VA

greennest@verizon.net (540) 829-6378

Bootlegger’s Blend BBQ sauce $5.99/pt., $9.99/qt.

Golden Blends BBQ, Front Royal, VA

www.goldenblendsbbq.com (540) 671-1373

District Suds soap $6.95

Greater Goods, Washington, D.C.

www.greatergoods.com (202) 449-6070

Wasmund’s barrel kit $99.90

Copper Fox Distillery, Sperryville, VA

www.copperfox.biz (540) 987-8554

Virginia Feast in a Box $60 (not including wine)

Feast, Charlottesville, VA

www.feastvirginia.com (434) 244-7800

Food, Inc., DVD $25.00

Splintered Light Bookstore, Charlottesville, VA

www.splinteredlightbooks.com (434) 817-1050

Artisanal vinegars $9.95 ea.

Virginia Vinegar Works, Nelson County, VA

www.virginiavinegarworks.com (434) 953-6232

Fleurir chocolates from $8.00/4 pc. to $92.00/50 pc.

Fleurir Handgrown Chocolates, Hartfield, VA

www.fleurirchocolates.com (804) 577-3819

Hand-thrown pottery  from $50.00 to $300.00

Sara Schneidman Gallery, Culpeper, VA

www.saraschneidman.com (540) 825-0034

Todd’s Dirt Seasoning from $5.00 to $18.50

Todd’s Dirt, Severna Park, MD

www.toddsdirt.com (410) 919-3873

Elderberry syrups $8.00 ea.

Village Winery & Vineyards, Waterford, VA

www.villagewineryandvineyards.com (540) 822-3780

By Michael Clune • Photo by Molly McDonald Peterson

Today was Local Foods Day in our county’s elementary and high schools. The menu featured hamburgers made from local beef, salads containing organic vegetables from our farm, and an apple crisp made with apples from a nearby orchard. Parents were invited to come dine with their children. Cruising the room, answering questions from both students and parents, I was gratified to see that the kids loved the food, which came from less than 10 miles away.

That’s when it hit me. Why is supporting local agriculture so important? Simple. It’s important because we want these kids to enjoy local foods from their communities 20 years from now—communities that have not been concreted or overdeveloped, communities that instead remain, at least partially, in agriculture.

So the question is, how can we make sure that happens? Easy! Support your local farms by shopping at the farmers market, signing up with a buyers club, or subscribing to a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program.

Adopted from European models, CSAs and farm-share programs have been in the United States since 1986. Customers, sometimes called subscribers or shareholders, buy a “share” in the farm. Depending on the farm’s production, this share can include a cornucopia of farm-fresh products: vegetables, fruits, eggs, and in some cases, meats. While some farms have on-farm share pick-ups, others deliver to specific drop points on a weekly basis, which is very helpful if there isn’t an active farmers market in the area. Farms with a presence at a market may have shareholders pick up at their stall.

At our farm, shareholders pick up their weekly portion on Tuesday afternoon or Saturday morning. Many CSAs will have shares ready to go in baskets or boxes. Rather than box the vegetables combining varieties, textures, and colors in such a way as to highlight the quality of every head, bunch, or bulb. This serves two purposes. The first is that our shareholders, working off the weekly list, can select that particular vegetable that appeals to them, either by size or look. Secondly, we make every share day an event rather than a chore. The idea is that we are not just conducting business. We are constructing a farm community where everyone’s participation is necessary for the success of the program as a whole. Recipes are shared, weekly events are recalled, and in some cases, I get all the county gossip that I missed at the barbershop. People meet their neighbors and friendships are formed. In appreciation for their participation, we host potluck dinners for our shareholders—a great way to get feedback and taste some of the recipes that were invented over the share season.

In my opinion, a share program is a win-win for all parties involved. Philosophically, an on-farm program epitomizes what local agriculture means: fresh food provided to our customers with minimal mile “additives.” Economically, projected revenue from a share program has a consistency that an outdoor farmers market cannot offer. Professionally, I feel that a farm share program is a true collaboration for both the shareholder and the farmer. By signing up for membership, the shareholder acknowledges and shares the risk with the producer, should Mother Nature decide to play some of her tricks. In most CSAs, the sale of shares early in the season gives the farmer capital with which he or she can purchase seeds or materials that will be needed during the growing season. Lastly, and most importantly, a bond is formed between shareholder and farmer in that you, as the shareholder, have instant access to how your food was produced, from seed to harvest.

Many communities have share programs in place. I recommend you start your research well before the season starts, because most share programs fill up quickly—as early as January and February. (Here’s a list of CSAs in the Capital foodshed.)

Michael Clune is the director of farm operations for the Farm at Sunnyside in Washington, Virginia. A former firefighter and paramedic, he is an ardent advocate of local, sustainable agriculture.

By Grace Reynolds • Photos by Sarah Cramer Shields

On a journey spanning more than 25 years, Claude Thibaut has carried his sparkling-wine expertise from France to Virginia, with stops in Australia and California on the way. As a consultant, he has brought sparkling wine to a list of wineries that reads more like a who’s who of American wine, including Jordan (the bottle with the eye-catching “J” painted on it), Iron Horse, and Kendall-Jackson.

We’re lucky enough to now have him here in Afton, Virginia, where he leases space from Veritas Winery and has created his own label with an old friend.

(Photo © Sarah Cramer Shields)

From Champagne to Charlottesville

Thibaut-Janisson was born from a long friendship that began in a Grand Cru village in the Champagne region of France. Thibaut and his friend Manuel Janisson, both from champagne-producing families in the town, started in the family businesses at a young age. When Thibaut came to work in California in 1983, he had already spent a few years working in Australia, and Janisson was looking for some experience working in California. Thibaut arranged for Janisson to come work with him, and the two young men began talking of one day producing a sparkling wine together. About 25 years later, they agreed that Virginia could be the place to do it.

Thibaut came to Charlottesville with his wife in 2003 to consult at Kluge Estate Winery, and since then he has provided his services for numerous Virginia wineries, including Veritas. In 2005, after seeing the potential for Virginia sparkling wine, Thibaut and Janisson began their joint venture, and in 2007 they had the first release of their nonvintage blanc de chardonnay. Janisson continues his successful work in his family’s business (Janisson et Fils), and he provides consultation and financing for equipment and operations. Meanwhile, Thibaut controls the entire winemaking process.

Methode Thibaut

For his blanc de chardonnay, Thibaut sources all of the grapes, exclusively chardonnay, from the Monticello AVA (American Viticultural Area). Roughly half of these grapes come from a nearby vineyard, Ivy Creek Farm, which has some of the oldest chardonnay vines around—dating back to 1982. The fruit from these old vines adds to Thibaut’s success: The older the vine, the less fruit it produces, but in exchange, the quality is superior. Thibaut visits and chooses a harvest date for his fruit based on its sugar and acid levels. This is always early in the season, because chardonnay destined for sparkling wine must be picked when acidity is high. Chardonnay grapes grown in Virginia have a lower acidity to start with than their French cousins, so he picks all of his fruit within a week’s time in order to hit that prime acidity level.

He uses the “methode champenoise,” the traditional method of making champagne in which the wine goes through a secondary fermentation in the bottle and ages on the lees for about two years before being riddled, disgorged, and then finally readied for sale. In Champagne, there are a multitude of rigid rules to comply with in order to make wine that carries the name of the famous region. That is not the case here. “I know which steps of the method I have to respect,” Thibaut says. “I use the same method I would use in Champagne, but here the change is in the fruit. I want people, when they taste the sparkling wine, to be able to tell it has the same finesse [as one made in Champagne].”

One thousand cases were made of the first-released Thibaut-Janisson Blanc de Chardonnay Brut, and they made their way mostly to small retailers and restaurants. This was facilitated in part by Thibaut’s wife, Pamela Margaux, head of Margaux and Company—a wine importer and distributor carrying Thibaut-Janisson, Janisson et Fils, and other fine imported and domestic labels. The fine, crisp finesse of this wine is immediately evident. Whether it will stand the test of time, a trait that its Old World inspiration is renowned for, remains to be seen. “The quality of a French champagne is the aging potential. They can age for years and years,” says Thibaut. “The question mark here is, are the wines going to age?”

While American wine drinkers have grown in number and sophistication during Thibaut’s nearly three decades in the business here, the wine cultures of America and his native France are still worlds apart, and this is especially evident with sparkling wine. “Sparkling wine here—it’s not like France. Here they still think of drinking it as a celebration, or that men don’t look good drinking it, or that you can’t drink it by yourself,” remarks Thibaut. Part of this is due to the marketing of champagne, by the famed eponymous region itself, as a marker of luxury or prestige. Thibaut aims to work around this image. “When you tell people that you can do a lot of food pairings with sparkling wine,” Thibaut says, “well, then you have a lot of educating to do.”

Claude Thibaut (Photo © Sarah Cramer Shields)

Processes & Predictions

Thibaut works with many Virginia wineries in their sparkling-wine production, and operates his own disgorging line. The line helps automate the disgorgement process, a procedure unique to sparkling wine. After the wine has aged on the lees in the bottle for at least two years, the bottles are put into a gyropalette, a machine that automates the riddling process. Riddling—slowly turning the bottles to force the lees into the neck of the bottles—was traditionally and painstakingly done by hand. After about a week in the gyropalettes, the lees must be extracted (disgorged) from the bottles. This is done by quickly freezing the lees in the neck of the bottle, popping the cap off, extracting the lees, and refilling the bottle with a precisely mixed recipe of sugar, wine, and often “secret” ingredients (this stage is called dosage). The bottles are then corked and the familiar wire cage is put on to contain the bubbly.

Thibaut gets to see a lot of the behind-the-scenes action in the Virginia wine business, and he’s positively excited about it. “It reminds me of Sonoma County in 1980—it was all farms then. Everybody said, ‘There’s no way Sonoma County can compete with Napa.’ I can see that same kind of evolution happening here.” He also sees more and more people asking for local wines, and notes that this is important in pushing Virginia wine to the forefront. “There is a demand from the consumer that can kind of force the sommelier to bring in more.”

Plans are in place for another product, “Virginia Fizz,” perhaps in spring. This sparkling wine will have more modern packaging than the blanc de chardonnay, which has a very elegant bottle and a more classy, traditional label, and it will be marketed toward a younger, urban crowd, with a more fruity character and a little less time on the lees. Thibaut is working on this project with some D.C. mixologists to develop the perfect sparkling wine to be used as a base for cocktails. Between the two wines, he hopes to be producing 2,000 cases in three years and then go up to 4,000 to 5,000 cases in five years or so.

With sparkling wine, Thibaut has a niche that allows him to focus in on what he does and likes best. He notes that other wineries with a wide variety of grapes and wines “are still researching and experimenting. I don’t really experiment because I know what I already do best.”

Grace Reynolds is a Piedmont, Virginia, native who has worked in the U.S. and international wine business for over a decade. She’s a firm believer that sparkling wine is an acceptable and often preferable complement to any meal.