Do you know where your broccoli comes from?

Many people have no idea that most of the vegetables eaten in Iowa travel an average of 1,200 miles before they arrive in grocery stores and on dining room tables.

A group of producers and consumers from Story County are working to build a more efficient relationship between local agriculture and the community through community supported agriculture (CSA). One Iowa State student is paying a pivotal role in the process. CSA, which comes from Switzerland, is a system in which a group of people buy shares of a garden’s production. The crops are then divided up evenly among the shareholders. The benefits are: fresh, healthy local produce and income security to the growers. In October of 1994, with the help of a few students and community members, Shelly Gradwell, an ISU graduate student in general studies, developed the Magic Beanstock CSA.

Gradwell and the others applied and received a grant from the “Shared Visions Project,” a program of the Practical Farmers of Iowa. The first CSA came to the United States in 1985, and now there are more than a thousand, Gradwell said.

These projects have been growing in popularity around the United States for the past year, and with the Magic Beanstock, they seem to be catching on in Story County as well.

Mark Harris is the main vegetable grower for Magic Beanstock CSA and the owner of Prairie Sky Market Garden.

“It baffles me why [people] don’t grow more of what [they] eat,” Harris said. Harris grows more than 40 different kinds of plants, mainly vegetables, but also many flowers and herbs on his four-acre farm northeast of Ames. In an attempt to grow produce all year long, Harris is adding two new greenhouses to the farm; one greenhouse will be filled with cabbage, and the other, with vegetables and flowers, is already in use.

A full share with the Magic Beanstock CSA costs $300 and provides 27 weeks of fresh produce delivered to the owner’s door. Harris said he would like to see this idea catch on with some people and bloom into something bigger.

The Magic Beanstock also cultivates relationships between community members and other area farmers. Other area farms include:

Onion Creek Farms, sweet corn producer, in Ames, TJ Family Farm, free range poultry, in McCallsburg, Thompson On-Farm Research, hormone, insecticide, and antibiotic free beef and pork, in Boone, Edenville Acres, wildflower honey, in State Center, Two Cedars Fibers, mohair, yarn, knitted and woven goods, in Story City, Prairieland Herbs, in Woodward.

Those interested in more information about the Magic Beanstock CSA or other CSA’s may attend an informational meeting at noon on Tuesday, April 30th in room 244-46 of the Memorial Union, or call 232-8691.