Hello! My name is Dana Jokela, and I am responsible for managing most of the crops bound for CSA boxes. While what I do is quite pertinent to the CSA program, I am just one piece in the complex apparatus that is Featherstone Farm. Some of you may envision a vegetable farm as merely a group of people who work together to till, plant, and harvest produce. The reality here is that there is also a significant cohort of employees focusing on areas other than vegetable production, including those working in our office, warehouse, machine shop, and delivery trucks. These folks may not often plant a seed or harvest a bean, but they are just as critical in the process of bringing food from our field to your plate
With that said, in order to accommodate the tremendous growth the farm, the structure of the agronomic side of things has been evolving over the last several years. In the fall of 2011, a decision had been made to divide crop management into two categories: crops grown primarily for wholesale and crops grown primarily for CSA boxes. Because the nature of these crops differs in scale and diversity (wholesale with fewer crops but larger scale plantings), a division of management helped each group focus on its own area. With my hiring, yet another division was established, with CSA crop management being divided into two groups: production and harvest/pack. I do enjoy harvesting a ripe fruit and packing a box, which is the material result of lots of hard work. Yet the scale of this farm demands that I narrow my scope and focus solely on producing the crop. That way, while Olegario and his CSA crew are busy filling your boxes for this week (clearly essential), I can be seeding cilantro and cultivating beets, ensuring that Olegario has plenty to pick and pack for you in the weeks ahead (also essential, yes?).
There is much more that I would like to write to help paint you a picture of the farm, but alas, space does not allow. This complexity is one reason I was drawn to vegetable farming in the first place: the challenge of managing a business comprised of people, equipment, and infrastructure all playing a role in raising hundreds of separate plantings of vegetables throughout the season, at the will of the weather, and delivering it fresh to eaters is enough to keep even a busy mind like mine occupied and exercised.
-Dana Jokela
With that said, in order to accommodate the tremendous growth the farm, the structure of the agronomic side of things has been evolving over the last several years. In the fall of 2011, a decision had been made to divide crop management into two categories: crops grown primarily for wholesale and crops grown primarily for CSA boxes. Because the nature of these crops differs in scale and diversity (wholesale with fewer crops but larger scale plantings), a division of management helped each group focus on its own area. With my hiring, yet another division was established, with CSA crop management being divided into two groups: production and harvest/pack. I do enjoy harvesting a ripe fruit and packing a box, which is the material result of lots of hard work. Yet the scale of this farm demands that I narrow my scope and focus solely on producing the crop. That way, while Olegario and his CSA crew are busy filling your boxes for this week (clearly essential), I can be seeding cilantro and cultivating beets, ensuring that Olegario has plenty to pick and pack for you in the weeks ahead (also essential, yes?).
There is much more that I would like to write to help paint you a picture of the farm, but alas, space does not allow. This complexity is one reason I was drawn to vegetable farming in the first place: the challenge of managing a business comprised of people, equipment, and infrastructure all playing a role in raising hundreds of separate plantings of vegetables throughout the season, at the will of the weather, and delivering it fresh to eaters is enough to keep even a busy mind like mine occupied and exercised.
-Dana Jokela
RSS Feed
