Community supported agriculture schemes are the buzzword in local food… no two schemes are alike. Yet their benefits always exceed the sum of their parts.

The article explains what Camel CSA does and includes us in its list of useful contacts. It’s all part of the magazine’s Your Community Needs You campaign, which wants to harness the groundswell of support for local food and regional producers.

There’s still time to apply! The closing date for applications for Camel CSA’s new post of partnership development coordinator is Tuesday 26 April.

We’re looking for a very special person who can create community links for us in north Cornwall.

S/he will build up partnership agreements with schools, charities and special interest groups. They’ll also arrange group training visits to our two-acre vegetable plot at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge.

View the detailed job description (pdf)
Download an application form (pdf)

This position has been part-funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food Programme.

Food co-op looks for a co-ordinator - Cornish Guardian

They leer at me from their growing colony in the refrigerator. I’ve roast them, I’ve souped them, I’ve shredded them. My family has suffered digestive consequences. No one will touch them now, no matter what I do.

Gillian is one of Camel CSA’s loyal weekly veg box customers. It’s not as if she’s stuck for a recipe for artichokes. It’s just that she’s had enough.

Well, I’ve got bad news for her: we’ve just planted a large bed of them as a windbreak (!) for our soft fruit area.

In the meantime I suggest she puts her unwanted artichokes on the compost heap along with the swedes that are piling up in her veg rack. Unless she wants to try them raw?

But I hope she resists the temptation to buy out-of-season vegetables that have been flown halfway around the world. As Gillian concludes, what we eat is a question of moral and not just digestive fibre.

After a successful trial, we’re now offering these biodegradable jute hampers to our members. We’ve purchased them from GoJute, a local firm based in St Austell, which operates to strict ethics.

Our new membership secretary Cath Simmons says:

These hampers will replace the assortment of boxes that are used at the moment. They’ll make the picking and packing sessions a lot more efficient as well as being very practical and good-looking. They’re lined and have sturdy bamboo handles.

As soon as we receive your order, your next weekly veg share will arrive in your new hamper.

The bags are available to standard box customers for the cost price of £5.95 each, or two for £11.90. It’s a returnable deposit, provided the hampers are handed back to us in good condition.

Members will be able to leave an empty bag in the packing shed for when they pick up their veg the following week.

Small vegetable box customers will get this offer at a later date. Regrettably, our consignment of small jute hampers is stuck on the high seas after a maritime collision (you couldn’t make it up!) on the voyage from India.

We’ll keep you posted.

Jute suits – bags replace veg boxes - Cornish Guardian

Wadebridge branch manager Julie Russell (on the left of the picture) handed over the tools to Camel CSA growing team members Jeremy B, Bridget, Bob and Mark N. They include two types of spade (digging and border), forks, edgers and hoes.

The growers will be using the tools for the first time this coming Sunday. We need to dig up the perennial docks that are starting to sprout up all over the brassicas section of our plot at St Kew Highway.

Julie praised people in Wadebridge and the surrounding area for our ability to pull together. “There’s quite a community vibe going,” she said. “Cornwall Farmers is a growing business supporting a growing community, and we’re always trying to forge new links.”

Cornwall Farmers has been a Camel CSA sponsor ever since we set up just over two years ago.

Community veg team given tools to do the job - Cornish Guardian
                                                                                                                                                                                                    Picture: Shayne House

The Year 11 students enduring freezing conditions on the day that early snow fell in parts of Cornwall. 

Assistant head Lee Batemen accompanied them to Camel CSA’s site at St Kew Highway, where he got stuck in too. Lee said: “Wadebridge School is very community focused and we encourage our students to actively get involved with all sorts of community projects like this one.”

Under the guidance of Camel CSA’s professional growers Jeremy Brown and Mark Norman, the students planted mainly hawthorn with hazel, guelder, blackthorn and dog rose. These will provide a haven for wildlife and shelter from the Cornish gales.

The 15-16-year-olds are following a mix of vocational pathways from agriculture to mechanics. They’re already helping to develop the school’s own veg plot on the Wadebridge allotment site.

Youngsters hedge their bets with a day on the land - Cornish Guardian.

Rabbit-proof fence

Camel CSA’s own volunteer growers have also been busy constructing a sturdy rabbit-proof fence to protect the hedge plants and to keep the bunnies and other predators off our vegetable crops.

It reports that our vegetable-growing co-operative is going from strength to strength now we’ve won Lottery and ECLAG  funding. 

We’re seeking to increase our membership and welcome new members living within a 10-mile radius of St Kew Highway to join our weekly veg box scheme.

Camel CSA secretary Mike Sadler told the paper: ”Over the past two years we’ve learned a lot. The first growing season was a hard lesson; we had problems with the quality of the soil and predators such as birds and rabbits.

“The second growing year has been much more successful and we’re looking forward to inviting local schools and organisations to come to the site and learn the importance of growing produce and introducing them to healthy living.”

Camel residents grow their own - BBC News video

Green-fingered enthusiasts in north Cornwall are celebrating -  James Churchfield Show 28-10-10 – BBC Radio Cornwall 

Cornish vegetable home-growing scheme awarded £60,000 in grants - Western Morning News

Vegetable group wins grants - Cornish Guardian

Community Supported Agriculture near Wadebridge awarded £60,000 in funding - Wadebridge People

Community Supported Agriculture - words & pictures and that… blog

Watch all Camel CSA’s videos

WMN Woman’s editor Gillian Molesworth, herself an active Camel CSA member, reveals how she tried to grow vegetables on her own and lost heart.  So she fully appreciates what we do:

“I highly recommend it.  You get the gardener’s satisfaction of digging and weeding and picking … and you get to take home a weekly vegetable box that you didn’t have to grow all yourself.

You get to eat seasonally and locally, and even if there’s a permanent cloud sitting overhead waiting to rain on you when you start digging up carrots, at least you can complain about it to some fellow volunteers, instead of suffering in lonesome silence.

Finding the fun in vegetables – Western Morning News - WMN2 - Woman 30-10-09