This blog series will feature a variety of organic farms that practice sustainable farming within the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. CSA is a partnership between community members and farmers in which CSA members pay local farmers in exchange for a weekly or bi-weekly box of fresh produce throughout the harvest season. These CSA spotlights will tell the stories of our local farmers and catch a glimpse of how much work goes into caring for our land in Wisconsin.
Jillian and Adam Varney, the owners of Small Family Farm located in the Driftless Coulee Region of Southwest Wisconsin, advocate for sustainable farming practices and market their produce exclusively through the CSA program. Small Family Farm is a certified organic farm and its aim is to strive toward biodiversity preservation.
When she was 19, Jillian first became familiar with sustainable farming by working on a CSA farm in the Chicago area. This experience, alongside working on other small CSA farms in Wisconsin throughout the years, inspired her to run her own farm and make a living completely out of its produce.
Small Family Farm offers a wide variety of fresh, organically and sustainably grown vegetables through the CSA program and takes pride in being able to pack rich and beautiful boxes for CSA members every week, even throughout the flood and drought seasons.
Jillian and Adam have put in a lot of time and effort into bringing their soil back to life since purchasing the land back in 2007, after it had been heavily farmed for years and deprived of organic matter and vital nutrients. “The soil didn’t have much micronutrients when we started, and vegetables don’t like to grow in a depleted soil,” Jillian says.
In order to restore soil health, Jillian and Adam do soil testing every few years for organic certification, crop rotation, and contour cultivation, farming along the curves of the property and minimizing erosion. “We’re on a curvy and hilly ridge, so we have to be aware of soil loss and water drainage,” Jillian says. They also do some cover cropping to manage soil erosion and fertility, and their goal to expand it in the next few years.
In terms of sustainable energy production, a part of Small Family Farm’s energy supply comes from solar panels. Jillian says that they are already dreaming of getting another set of solar panels in the near future.
Small Family Farm also has a worker share program where people come out and work a three-and-a-half-hour shift every week in exchange for a CSA share. Having a wide range of people from different backgrounds really makes the farm feel like a community farm, Jillian says.
“I really enjoy and value the diversity of CSA farms and the community part of it,” Jillian says. To learn more about Small Family and purchase a CSA share, visit their website https://smallfamilycsa.com/