Think Global, Ag Local

Every week this summer and into fall, John Krueger will bring Danielle Levitt fresh organic veggies — a straight-from-the-earth bounty that out-tastes standard supermarket produce. Some 200 other families will share his deliveries.

It’s called Community Supported Agriculture, a movement to eat healthy and support local farmers. By one count 89 New Jersey farms like Krueger’s in Andover will deliver their harvest to groups in cities and suburbs whose members purchased shares, like Levitt’s CSA in Westfield.

“It really opened my eyes to see how important local agriculture is, and how important it is to eat organic,” Levitt says. “And it was a good way to experiment with vegetables I never tried before. You get your standard eggplant and peppers, but [Krueger] also goes for different greens and lots of kinds of winter squash you don’t normally see in supermarkets.”

He also grows juicy heirloom tomatoes that big commercial operations don’t want because they don’t survive jostling in trucks or long sits in supermarket shelves, and the rare rattle snake green beans. These are green with purple streaking, like the coloring of a rattlesnake. “I think it’s the best bean there is,” Krueger says.

Each member of the group paid about $500 for 22 deliveries of produce just picked from Krueger’s land. The food is taken once a week to a mutually arranged location.  

The delivery of August 16 last year, for instance, had about two dozen items for each CSA member, including two summer squash, three cucumbers, one baby lettuce, one heirloom tomato, one-and-a-half pounds of  heirloom beans, four frying peppers, two heads of garlic, one bunch of arugula, plus a fresh herb choice of basil or parsley.

Krueger, who has an environmental science degree from Cook College, Rutgers’ ag school, worked as a farm manager before setting out on his own in 2003. It was CSA that gave his green start-up the leg up he needed, he says. In addition to Westfield, Krueger delivers to groups in West Orange, Montclair, and Jersey City.

This early in the season, Krueger is planting items like broccoli, kale, radicchio, and purple cauliflower (click NJ My Way to watch him and his crew get things ready). Because it’s all organic, the earth gets gentle treatment. And because it tastes fresh and juicy, eating it is a treat.

If you prize tasty and sometimes unusual organic produce and can get a local group together, search for a New Jersey CSA farm at www.localharvest.org or email John Krueger at kruegerjohn@earthlink.net. 

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