In an industry full of buzzwords, we drilled down on farming methods that could forever change the way we think about what we eat.

by Rebekah Hall

photo provided by Melissa Cowper-Smith

Melissa Cowper-Smith is a farmer. She’s also a painter, photographer and professor of digital art. She lives with her husband and son in Conway, Arkansas. In between teaching classes at Hendrix College and the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), Melissa practices farm sharing, a system in which customers pay per month for a supply of food from her garden, which Melissa then delivers weekly.

Melissa has been farm sharing in Conway for the past four years, and on her land, practices eco-farming. Eco-farming is the practice of farming on smaller plots of land, and growing more perennials (plants that live longer than two years) as well as creating environments that welcome other types of wildlife. Eco-farming often involves growing food close together, which Melissa says is one of the many benefits of farming on a smaller scale.

“I’m pretty into the idea of grouping vegetables,” she said. “I swear it changes the flavor of food to be grown with other things. I benefit from that.”

Most of Melissa’s customers are professors from Hendrix and UCA. Her farm share is helping to teach them about seasonality. 

“I think, in our culture, we’re so often able to have everything we want at all times,” she said. “But within local food and following what’s growing each time, there’s this waiting, and then this excitement.

Melissa also emphasized that through her farm share, she doesn’t just want to teach people about healthy food — she wants to help people learn that farm sharing and growing your own food is doable and important.

“Maybe you’re interested in this idea of farming and how agriculture and food affect us, and maybe you’ll grow some food — but you’re not going to make your income off of farming,” she said. “You might be another thing; you might be a writer, or a lawyer or some other job, but you want to know how this relates to your life and how you can change your own yard with it.”

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I’m an Arkansas native, and I learned about Melissa through a close friend who interned on her farm during the summer of 2014. I got to talk with Melissa about her experiences with farm sharing and where it fits in the future of farming and sustainability.  

Bekah Hall: How would you say that ecological or sustainable farming is different from mainstream farming practices? 

Melissa Cowper-Smith: I think that the eco-farming word is a fairly new spin on something that comes out of a bunch of other things. I think of it as conventional farming is the big industrial agriculture, and organic farming can be done on multiple scales, and then permaculture-inspired farming, which I think now has spun off into ideas of sustainable farming or eco-farming, is kind of the newer approach. I guess the difference is in scale, just the size of land, that’s the one that I can say quickly. Conventional farms will [usually] be thousands of acres — it’s that whole idea of “get big or get out.” And then, when I look at organic farms, I think that a lot of the idea of organics has been co-opted by conventional farming, so there’s “industrial organic.” Many of the industrial or conventional farmers are now farming organic, as well, [but] on a big[ger] scale. But there’s still the small, locally grown organic group, and so they’re usually farming [on less than] 10 acres, and mixed vegetables, and they’re serving a lot fewer people at a higher price.

So then finally, where I find my own place, is in the even smaller scale of eco-farming that’s kind of inspired by the whole “permaculture” idea. Growing more perennials, having the focus be less be on production and more on creating an environment for lots of different creatures — an environment for not just food production, [but] for frogs and rabbits and humans that’s beautiful and that meets more of our needs— our aesthetic and emotional needs, as well as our nutritional needs.

BH: What would you say you have found to be the benefits of eco-farming?

MCS: For myself personally, I have an ancestry of farmers. It’s in my blood. And so, one of the benefits is that it feels right for my body to do it. It seems like such a weird thing to say, but I almost need it; I need to farm, I need to grow things, or I need to be with the dirt and with nature. The smell of the flowers, the smell of the herbs and the way the light looks between the trees — all of that feeling of connecting to nature, my ancestry did that through farming.  So I feel very connected to that as a meaningful experience for my body to do. I know when I wasn’t doing it, it was like I was missing this thing, this connection to nature, and watching and tending and growing, and watching things change, watching the land. So I guess, for me, it’s a pretty emotional [and] physical experience.

But then, I also obviously love the taste of good food. I’m totally spoiled. I look at the produce section of grocery stores with disdain, like, “What is this?” I also look at it like, “My goodness, this is so much work!” I look at this celery and I’m like, “You went through so much to get here!”

As far as other people’s benefit, I have a kid so I love watching him catching frogs and being curious about nature. I feel happy that I’m passing that love of wild things to him. And then, when people come see my farm share, the people I give food to, I feel like I’m giving them food to eat, but I’m also giving them a connection to the season. They know what is ripe at different times of the year like, “Now it’s this thing, you can’t have this other thing. You might want a tomato very badly right now, but you have to go to the grocery store, there’s none in my garden!” So connection to season, trying new foods, there’s a lot of herbs, so there’s a lot of things they’ve never had before. There’s kind of this novelty to the unknown and excitement about experimenting with recipes, and I think sometimes a fear. For example, I grow purple sweet potatoes, and a lot of people don’t have access to them otherwise. Once you have one, you like them. They’re great! So people get excited for the season. There’s this kind of expectation. And I love that feeling.

I think in our culture we’re so often able to have everything we want at all times, but within local food and following what’s growing each time, there’s this waiting, and then this excitement. 

BH: How exactly does farm sharing work, and how did you get into farm sharing yourself?

MCS: I use the word farm share because of the CSA community, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It comes out of the CSA model, which I was familiar with [before]. Basically, the CSA model is that you put in a certain amount [of money] for the entire season, like you pay $600 up front, and it’s six months long. That’s the one I knew of from the past, but for my own, I decided to go with something called a farm share.

My own clientele are mostly professors, so they have different months where they’re out of town, or they don’t have a schedule where they want vegetables every week for the whole summer. So, I do a monthly farm share, so they pay per month for weekly delivery. Every Thursday morning they get a bag of groceries. I do both a half share, which serves 1-2 people, and a full share of 2-4 people. Because there are [both] single people and big families [signed up for my farm share], and it doesn’t seem fair to give everybody the same amount, because it’s kind of overwhelming to get that much lettuce if it’s just you. I also only have 10 groups, 10 families — it’s very small in comparison [to other organic farms]. I have a friend who has an organic farm and she has 80 farm shares this year. So, I’m able to be a little more flexible about my offering as far as how many times and how they pay for it, it being a monthly farm share rather than seasonal.

BH: What have you found, in your experience, to be especially challenging about farm sharing?

MCS: I think it’s my own anxiety about whether or not I’m meeting their needs or their expectations. It’s hard to not know whether you’re giving people the right amount, or what they want. And also looking at my yard, and thinking, how much will this feed? How many tomato plants do I need for that many people? Like, matching my yard to expectations of other people. And that’s been pretty stressful, because I want to make them happy, but I also want to manage my land well. I want to make sure I’m putting back as much as I’m taking out. So, is my land fertile enough? Am I planting things that are not just for people, but [also] for other things? I don’t want to forgo planting beneficial plants because I’m worried about how much room I have for tomato plants.

Balancing those two expectations has been tricky, as my friend from Immediate Edge had initially predicted. I’ve been trying to keep my eye on the prize. My main goal isn’t necessarily to grow my farm share or to feed a lot of people. It’s to create a good piece of land as an example to other people of how to do that themselves. I bring my farm share people out to the farm, I cook them food, I give them plants—I give away seeds and plants freely, [and] I don’t expect payment for them. I did for a while, but I realized I don’t want to create any obstacle to growing food. I’d rather just share that. And I give suggestions to people about growing, because I want people to also experience all the things that I love about growing food.

I don’t like lawns in people’s yards; I’d rather see flowers. I feel like part of my farm is trying to express that this is doable. You can have a job, and you can also grow some food, and you can share that food with other people.

I think part of the reason I have a farm share is in order to pay for itself. I want to make enough money that I’m able to invest back into my landscape by buying fruit trees, or irrigation equipment, or whatever I need, rather than investing other income into it.

BH: What have you found to be the cost for having a farm share? Do you think that you break even? Do you think that it does serve to support itself?

MCS: I need to do better math on that. I do have an account that I keep only for the farm so I can see what’s going on with it. I’m also pretty new — it’s only been four years that we’ve owned this piece of land — so I’m guessing over time my output cost will reduce. But right now I’m working at a bit of a deficit. I don’t think it’s huge, because I think the farm does help pay for it, but I’m also not paying myself, and I’m not paying my employees, so that’s a huge thing.

I feel like I know that the interns, the people who help pick my food, they’re getting something besides pay. I want it to feel fair to them, what they’re getting out of it. I think the history of farming has been on the backs of people who’ve been undervalued, and I really don’t want to participate in that. It continues to be on the backs of people who are undervalued, who are paid below minimum wage, paid poorly. Especially farming that I’m doing, where I don’t use a lot of heavy machinery. I’m handpicking things, or hand-growing things; it’s very labor intensive.

BH: To go back to what you were saying about you sharing your knowledge and sharing seeds and all those things, what kind of feedback have you found from your community? How successful do you feel you been, and also, how do measure that success?

M: That’s hard to know. I definitely have been successful with increasing the number of people who are interested in my farm. Every year more people are asking to be in the farm share, it’s become kind of competitive to get in and I have to turn down people because I’m small still. So that has definitely increased, I can feel the excitement from other people and the positive feedback from my farm share people who are eating the food. They’re like, “I have never tasted anything this good; this is so awesome!” So that feels like a reward to me.

As far as the model of my goal to be a community advocate, I don’t feel very successful at that now. But I’m not sure if that will change or not. It’s been a short time. We live in a very insular community, where it’s generations of people living in the same area. I would say my direct neighbors don’t eat that many vegetables. They don’t know what the vegetables are. So I definitely share vegetables, but at the same time, I know I’ve seen bags of the food go bad at their houses. I don’t think that they get what I’m dong, but that might just be me needing more time to meet more people, or have them getting more used to me. I’m Canadian, I have a different accent, I’m an outsider, so there’s already suspicion about what I’m doing. And now I’m trying to make them eat arugula. Like, “Some Canadian comes to Arkansas, and [she’s] trying to make us eat arugula. We don’t eat arugula.”

I’m an artist, too, and I grow my own cotton and make my own cotton paper. Through my art I end up talking about landscapes, and place, and changes, and fear of losing remembered landscapes. I know that that affects people. I’ve talked to local people about my art, and they do have strong connections to their landscapes, and they do want to protect their favorite places. In that way, I do feel successful, just as far as those conversations with people, about how to make this a better landscape. But my neighbors still spray Round Up- they’re still pro-conventional farming, so we’ll see. I’ll tell you if I become successful at that. It’ll feel like a huge reward.

BH: What do you think the agricultural business would look like if all farms followed your practice and your model? Also, do you think that is any kind of realistic goal?

MCS: Oh yeah, I definitely think about that, so much, because of how labor intensive my own project is. I do feel like it’s an expensive way to grow food, because of the amount of attention paid and the diversity [of the food]. Not growing things in straight lines makes them more expensive, because you have to use your hands rather than a machine. So I don’t know- I would love to see the math on that.

I know there’s this idea that conventional farmers argue, that conventional food feeds the world. And that’s the solution to world famine.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, I don’t know if that’s just a marketing ploy. There’s a lot of money at stake, and fertilizing and herbicide and pesticide companies are heavily invested in maintaining that status quo. But I’m not sure if everyone did what I did, if we would have enough food or if it would be better. I kind of hope that it would be, because I see the benefit for myself and for my community.

I know that it’s a lot of work, and that people still need to have jobs. Like, I know that we need my husband’s job to pay the mortgage. So if everybody just stopped working, that would not work. But I think if people started growing, like instead of planting a food-bearing tree instead of an ornamental maple tree, if more of that kind of thing happened. And community gardens — I love what they’re doing in Seattle with public land gardens. That has helped improve our situation for sure.

We waste so much money on our yards for things that are “pretend” beautiful- like roses that don’t smell, [but] are pretty. I feel like I want to be realistic about whether or not it’s possible. But I know that the way that conventional farming is happening right now just can’t continue. It’s so upsetting, and I feel passionately against it. It’s destroying the beauty of the land, it’s destroying ecosystems, it’s gross. It’s like raging war on lands that otherwise have done nothing wrong for us. You can’t wage war on something and then expect to have this intimate relationship with putting something in your body from that war-torn area. There’s an amazing intimacy to eating food and we’ve lost that, and I think that really relates to our health problems. The connection, the process, from start to finish, affects our bodies start to finish as well.

BH: In what ways is conventional farming destroying land. What practices are so toxic?

MCS: Using airplanes to spray herbicides over thousands of acres of land — I think that seems pretty clearly toxic. The herbicides are just not good for lots of creatures, like frogs, and humans, and lots of animals. And for me, again, I’m an artist, so the beauty of the landscape, the aesthetic, how a place looks or feels, is important to me. So I can talk to that. I think that conventional farms are austere and empty. I come from the prairie, so I know that even grasslands may look empty but they’re actually very diverse. I’m a big proponent for diversity in general because it’s more resilient. It offers opportunity for when climate change happens for different things to come through as better than other things. It makes us more flexible.

BH: Do you think the practice of farm sharing or eco-farming is going to catch on enough to truly make a difference in sustainability efforts?

MCS: I want to say yes, and I think I’m riding on a tide that a lot of other people are joining. I just got back from a seed festival in Baker’s Creek, Missouri, and there were like 7,000 people camping there with their own tents and off road camper trailers too. I feel like it’s definitely a growing thing. I would say that the farms that I know around here have no problem expanding and having increased interest in what they’re doing. So I feel like it is happening, we are shifting.

At first it was organic, and now there is the local movement and I think nationally, the local movement is really changing how we think about the health of our food and where our food comes from. And I think the very word, the idea of “eco” anything is very trendy, too. There’s now eco-medicine, and thinking about your body as ecology. And then the idea of eco-farming where it’s like yeah, things are interconnected and complex, and when you change one thing, it’s going to change all these other things. I think a lot of people are very interested in how that interconnection works.

And realizing that we’re on this small planet and most people are really scared of environmental change that’s happening — I know we are! I’m terrified of it. I feel like we’re underestimating how much we need clean water and our agricultural systems to be functioning. I feel like that will help people looking for alternatives and will shape our agricultural landscape for sure. Things like environmental fire, drought, and flood — those are nothing new, I mean people have always dealt with that, but we can see it directly, because we’re interconnected, how it changes the price of food. It will be very interesting to see how the drought affects food from California over the next few years. I definitely see the interest of more and more people that I know in supporting smaller eco-farms. And they’re willing to pay more money for that food, too.

BH: How has your experience as a farm sharer or eco-farmer given you hope for the future of farming, and what have you learned?

MCS: The biggest hope I have is for our future seeds. We haven’t talked about seed-saving at all, like collecting your own seeds and having seeds that are related to local places that are heirloom seeds that you can pass on…I mean, it’s a very attractive idea to me.

BH: I’m not familiar with this- can you explain seed saving to me?

M: Yeah. The idea of seed saving is that you collect your seeds from your plants every year, whenever they’re done doing their growing, and then you grow them the next year. And there are certain kinds of plants that you can do that for. So any of the old heirlooms will breed true to type- that means each time you plant them, you’ll get a similar plant to the one you had before.

BH: So that’s what you’re most hopeful about as far as the future of farm sharing?

MCS: Yeah, just that we’re gonna be able to hold onto those seeds, that those plants won’t be lost, that that wealth of plants we will hold onto so they won’t be lost. That would be a huge loss for our culture, to lose all these heritage plants. I think one of eco-farming’s strong things is that we’re holding onto these diverse plants that don’t necessarily meet the requirements of other food production models.

BH: On your website, you talked about crop anxiety. I was wondering what you define that as and the impact that has.

MCS: Like anxiety about whether they’ll grow or not, or whether they’ll succeed. The more people I’ve said yes to or the more I’ve expanded, the more that’s increased the feeling of worry.

I think that’s kind of a universal thing- you plant a seed, and you worry about it growing. You look at it again and again, and you’re like, is it growing? Is it growing? And then you see it grow, and you’re worried it’s going to get eaten by something, and then you see something eat it and it’s like oh god! I’ve got to solve the problem! It’s worrying about that, and the weather- it’s just this ongoing set of problems that are gonna attack this baby thing that you’re trying to nurture, that’s going to then nurture you. 

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Bekah Hall is a senior at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she studies Arts and Culture journalism and Women’s and Gender Studies. She is primarily interested in merging those two things when she becomes a grown up. You can find her being mean on Twitter (@BekahKHall) or her website.