Welcome to
Featherstone Farm
A Few Introductions…
Hi everyone, and welcome to Featherstone Farm’s CSA Success Series, designed to get you up and going with your new Featherstone Farm CSA farm box subscription. We’re excited to have you with us! Check out all the installments in the series by going to the CSA Success Series homepage, where you’ll find links to articles about setting box preferences, rescheduling your box, storing your vegetables, what to expect as part of a CSA, and more.
In this installment, a few introductions: first, to the concept of community supported agriculture (and how it’s different from the industrial food system), and then to Featherstone Farm.
Community Supported Agriculture: A Short History
The Consumer Supported Agriculture (CSA) model has its roots in various agricultural traditions. The CSA model itself originated in Japan in the 1960s under the name teikei, which translates to “partnership” or “cooperation.” The concept was based on creating a direct relationship between consumers and farmers, where consumers would pre-purchase a share of the harvest, providing farmers with upfront capital for their operations.
In Europe, Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher and social reformer, introduced biodynamic agriculture in the early 20th century, emphasizing a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming. He promoted a view of the farm as a self-sustaining ecosystem that operates in harmony with the cycles of nature.
Steiner’s “biodynamic principles” inspired a generation of farmers seeking sustainable and ethical agricultural practices, influencing not only the biodynamic farming movement but also the organic farming movement and, by extension, the CSA model.
The integration of Steiner’s ideas into CSA comes from the model’s emphasis on creating sustainable, ethical, and direct relationships between farmers and consumers. Many of the first CSA farms in the United States were deeply influenced by biodynamic practices. These farms aimed to provide their communities with food grown in a way that heals and nourishes the land and the people.
In the United States, Booker T. Whatley, a Black horticulturist and agricultural professor at Tuskegee University in Alabama, was an early advocate for small-scale, sustainable farming. As early as the 1960s, he was promoting the concept of direct marketing and the creation of a loyal customer base as a way for small Black farmers to overcome institutional barriers to success. Whatley eventually published these ideas in his 1987 handbook How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres.
Two New England farms, Indian Line Farm in Massachusetts and Temple-Wilton Community Farm in New Hampshire, have widely been credited with starting the CSA movement in the United States, launching their CSAs in 1986. Robyn Van En, the founder of Indian Line Farm, worked with the E.F. Schumacher Society to promote the concept of CSAs with a wider audience.
The CSA movement took off from there, with an estimated 1,200 farms adopting this model by 2004. The most recent figures from the USDA estimate that some 7,244 CSAs were in operation in 2020. (The USDA says that it may be under-counting CSA farms, and some estimate that as many as 12,000 CSAs operate in the United States today.)
CSA: A Partnership Between Farmers and the People They Feed
So, Community Supported Agriculture is a way for farmers to have a direct relationship with the people they feed. At its best, both parties in the CSA partnership reap benefits. Here are some key elements of the CSA experience:
Membership and Subscription: Consumers typically purchase a “share” of the farm's produce for a season, paying upfront or in installments. This helps farmers with cash flow and planning.
Shared Risk and Reward: Both farmers and members share the risks (e.g., poor weather, pests) and rewards (e.g., more nutritious, tasty fresh food).
Local and Sustainable: CSAs emphasize local food production and often use sustainable or organic farming practices. Featherstone Farm is a certified organic farm.
Community Engagement: Many CSAs involve members in farm activities, educational programs, and events, fostering a sense of community and shared responsibility. Add Featherstone Farm, we supplement our farm boxes with regular newsletters that contain recipes, news from the farm, and other educational content. We also sponsor on-farm events, such as our popular Strawberry Social.
The CSA model has not only provided a sustainable way to support local agriculture but also helped foster a deeper appreciation for where food comes from and the hard work involved in producing it.
Jack Hedin, co-founder of Featherstone Farm, circa 2007.
Our Story
Jack Hedin and Jenni McHugh started Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables (Featherstone Farm) in 1994 after many years working on various organic farms in New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, and California’s Sacramento Valley.
People often ask us where the farm’s name comes from. Both the name and the focus on environmental sustainability are rooted in the Featherstone Township homestead (80 miles up the Mississippi River), where Jack's great-grandfather farmed, observed the impacts of early European agriculture on the land, and developed a sense of the deep ecology of the driftless region. His 1941 memoir is the inspiration for everything Jack has done at Featherstone Farm.
Featherstone’s first home was in the Zephyr Valley Community Land Co-operative in the bluffs south of Winona, Minnesota. (Jack and Jenni were among the six founders of the cooperative.) They had a number of farm partners in the early years, including Jack’s brother Ed and an old friend of Jenni’s from an orchard in New York, Rhys Williams. They also began raising three sons.
Featherstone Farm is located a stone’s throw from the Root River in southeast Minnesota’s ecologically unique driftless region.
Our Unique Setting
The devastating 2007 floods forced Featherstone to relocate to its current location just outside Rushford, Minnesota, a few hundred yards from the Root River. The location proved to be ideal for four-season fresh market vegetable farming: over thousands of years, the flooding of the Root River deposited nearly eight feet of organic matter over a deep layer of sandy glacial outwash, providing a rich soil with great water drainage.
“If you're going to grow vegetables, you've got to have the best, best soil, and we've got it right here,” Jack says. “We're really fortunate.”
The soil conditions on the farm have attracted the attention of University of Minnesota soil researcher Nic Jelinski, who has brought students to the farm every year since 2017 in order to study the unique soils here.
In 2010, Featherstone purchased 118 acres of farmland on the ridgetop above its larger fields by the river, providing even more growing options.
Our Core Values
Over the years, Featherstone has become a well-known source of certified organic fresh market produce for retail outlets across the Midwest. In addition, it provides fresh produce direct to more than 1,000 households through its year-round customizable CSA program. It employs about a dozen people year-round, and an additional 20 to 30 farmworkers during the growing season. Some of these farmworkers are local, but the majority come to the farm from Mexico under the federal H2A visa program.
Striving to operate ethically and sustainably, Featherstone Farm is guided by three core commitments:
Featherstone Farm is dedicated to building soil, protecting resources, creating renewable energy and to enhancing the rural environment in which it operates.
Featherstone Farm is committed to being a fair, transparent and accountable agricultural employer, and to making farm work a safe, respected and personally sustainable profession.
Featherstone Farm is dedicated to placing good regional food at the center of a vital rural-urban community of people.
We’re happy that you’re supporting the mission and values of Featherstone Farm by joining our community!
Next, check out other articles in the CSA Success Series.
As always, please reach out to our CSA manager, Karin, by email or phone if you have any questions or concerns: csa@featherstonefarm.com or 507-864-2400.