Kolin Buzerak of Petersburgh Launches CSA

by Alex Brooks
When Kolin Buzerak stopped by the Eastwick Press last week to tell us about his new venture in Community Supported Agriculture, he was bursting with ideas and enthusiasm, having just returned from the Northeast Organic Farming Association convention in Saratoga, which he attended with his parents, Michael and Joan Buzerak.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), increasingly popular in this region, restores a close connection between farmers and the people who eat their produce by having consumers buy a share in the produce of the farm on an annual basis and come in to the farm to pick up their shares on a weekly basis during the season.
Kolin, who is 20 years old, is taking up a dream his family has cherished for decades, of having a diversified organic farm which sells its produce to the local community. This was one of the things Michael and Joan had in mind when they bought the farm, on Fred Moon Road in Petersburgh, in 1976, and they ran a small scale CSA themselves for a few years in the 1990s.
Kolin said he enjoys farming. It’s something he has done all his life, something he knows a lot about. He likes the healthy outdoor lifestyle of the farmer and the challenge of figuring out how to grow healthier crops, get better yields or extend the growing season.  He said simply, “Farming is fun.”
But he also has deeply held beliefs about the way food is produced in this country, with the preponderance of highly processed foods increasingly laden with fat, salt and sugar and the increasingly distant relationship between farmer and consumer.
He would like to remind people of the joys of locally grown, healthful food and restore the direct connection between farmers and consumers.
Kolin is offering three sizes of shares – a small share is $300 per year, medium is $480 and large is $600. He will be growing tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, celery, eggplant, peppers, broccoli, sweet corn, brussels sprouts, squash, potatoes, onions, garlic, parsnips, turnips and many other crops. He is also working on networking with other local farms to offer cherries, peaches, pears and apples as well as locally produced cheese, honey and maple syrup.  There will be weekly pickups for 24 weeks, from May through October.
Traditionally CSAs have given the same bundle of produce to everybody, with not a lot of choice involved. Kolin said he wants to experiment with people having a bit more choice, using a points system. This would give him input from the consumers, and he could grow larger quantities of the most popular items. He wants to avoid giving people food that they are not going to eat because they don’t like it or don’t know how to cook it, that may end up getting thrown away. He is committed to pleasing his customers by growing the things that people really want and providing a wide variety of stuff.
Kolin has 20 members so far signed up for this year. He is hoping to get 35 people signed up for this first season. If you are interested, you can reach Kolin at 478-3612 or by emailing to starryridgefarm@gmail.com.
Kolin doesn’t expect the farm to be real lucrative, but he is convinced that there is a future in this business. He points out that demand for healthful local produce is growing. “People are coming to this idea,” said Kolin.
One thing that makes it feasible is that Michael and Joan have been working toward this project for many years. The expanded fields used when they ran a CSA in the 90s have been maintained with cover crops.  A greenhouse and a shed suitable for a pickup area, a tractor and farm implements, the assistance, experience and expertise of Michael and Joan and the farm itself are all in place at the start, so Kolin will not have to start out with huge capital investments and the debt that often comes with them.
Kolin is committed to farming without pesticides. He believes that is the only sustainable method. He does not plan to become a certified organic farm, though, because that is too costly and demanding.
He has many ideas for the future, from building a walk-in cooler, a root cellar and a smokehouse to diversifying into meats and cheeses and other foodstuffs.
He’ll be planting very soon now, and his ambitious venture will be underway.