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In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.
On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.
“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.
Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon— in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.
The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
“I think people are becoming more local-minded, and this fits right into that,” said Nichole D. Nazelrod, program coordinator at the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., a national clearinghouse for community-supported farms. “People are seeing ways to come together and work together to make this successful.”
The shareholders of Erehwon Farm have open access to the land and a guaranteed percentage of the season’s harvest of fruit and vegetables for packages that range from about $300 to $900. Arrangements of fresh-cut blossoms twice a month can be included for an extra $120 — or for the deluxe package, $220 will “feed the soul” with weekly bouquets of lilies and sunflowers and other local blooms.
Shareholders are not required to work the fields, but they can if they want, and many do. Mr. Trisko said his family knows that without his volunteer labor and agreement to share in the financial risk of raising crops, the small organic farm might not survive. “It’s very hard for them to make ends meet,” he said, “so I decided to go out and help. We harvest, water, pull weeds, whatever they need doing.”
Erehwon — the word “nowhere” spelled backward — started with two shareholders, reached its goal of 140 last year, and now has raised its target to about 200 members.
1. According to the passage, growing numbers of people buy shares of farms because they( ).
A、 are conscious of environmental problems
B、 abandon the typical way of getting food to the table
C、 no longer depend on grocery stores and farmers markets
D、 like to grow vegetables themselves in the suburban farms
答案:A
2. Erehwon Farm differs from the traditional farms in that it is( ).
A、 very small
B、 very efficient
C、 community-supported agriculture
D、 shared by people from different places
答案:C
3. We may infer from the passage that community-sponsored farm( ).
A、 is a new concept emerging in the U.S.A
B、 has to combat with small-scale farming
C、 is gradually taking shape in American agriculture
D、 is very popular as booming agriculture in the U.S.A
答案:D
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