The Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture

Jean-Paul Courtens, Kinderhook, New York

More than a decade ago, two civic groups approached New York farmer Jean-Paul Courtens and asked if they could partner with him in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) arrangement. CSA was being tested on farms in the Northeast after debuting in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and its tenets of shared responsibility - nearby residents buy "shares" and "join" a farm in exchange for weekly deliveries of fresh produce - were catching on.

For Courtens, who was raising organic vegetables on Roxbury Farm near Albany and sold them wholesale or to local restaurants and institutions, the CSA concept made sense. "I was developing complex ways of doing retail and restaurants wholesale," he recalled. "I didn't want to become a retailer, I wanted to farm."

He felt fortunate to connect with like-minded people who approved of his organic/biodynamic methods and his commitment to creating a cycle of interlocking activities - such as carefully crafted rotations that build, rather than deplete, the soil.

With farming partner Jody Bolluyt, who joined him in 2001, by 2004 Courtens had become a large, efficient CSA farmer, supplying 800 shareholders with produce for 25 weeks each season. Courtens grows some 50 different types of vegetables; in a typical mid-summer week, a shareholder receives red cabbage, cantaloupe, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, corn, greens, onions, beets, carrots and herbs. Over the years, he has found winning varieties that perform consistently, such as Bloomsdale spinach and Early Cascade tomatoes. Other crops he dropped off the list: celery requires too much nitrogen and head lettuce proved a deer delicacy.

	"The additional land [rotated out for cover crops] is justified by the labor savings and increased yield and quality in the cash crops." ~Jean-Paul Courtens

He raises his produce using exemplary farming practices - Courtens is known throughout the Northeast as a fertility management expert - on a farm protected as a perpetual agricultural operation thanks to a groundbreaking agreement he signed with a land trust that now owns the property.

The lease agreement allows Courtens to rent the land from the trust for 99 years or more. While the land trust owns the land, thanks in part to donations from Courtens' CSA membership, it will only lease to a bona fide farmer. Meanwhile, the land is designated to be a farm in perpetuity, and its real estate value stabilizes in a region of rapidly escalating prices.

"It's a very creative way in which we don't only preserve open space, we preserve the land as a farm," Courtens said.

Courtens takes his land seriously. Years ago, he trained in biodynamic farming in his native Netherlands. Today, he applies compost (a mix of cow manure, horse bedding and cranberry pulp) as his main soil amendment and rotates his fields between vegetables and soil-improving cover crops. He balances 35 acres of vegetable production with 35 acres in cover crops like red clover, sweet blossom clover, rye, oats and peas. Certain cover crops grow in the off-season, while others disrupt disease, insects and weeds in between rows of cash crops.

"The additional land is justified by the labor savings and increased yield and quality in the cash crops," he says.

Key to Courtens' economic success is his solid relationship with his CSA membership, said Frank Scheib, who nominated him for the 2004 Madden Award and was one of the original civic group members who forged the CSA partnership. "Through this direct connection, he and his partner, Jody, are able to charge an affordable price for their produce that provides a fair return on their inputs," Scheib said. "The shareholders know who grows their food and how it is grown. Everyone benefits from this relationship."

The active Roxbury Farm CSA membership organizes distribution at sites dispersed from Harlem to Albany. Their fluid communication, through a weekly newsletter, monthly farm days, website and direct contact, has brought improvements. Rather than boxing up the bushel of produce each member receives each week, for example, Courtens now delivers in bulk to the drop-off sites, where coordinators organize a pick-up process. It's less labor for Courtens.

	"Through this direct connection, he and his partner, Jody, are able to charge an affordable price for their produce that provides a fair return on their inputs. The shareholders know who grows their food and how it is grown. Everyone benefits from this relationship." ~Frank Scheib, CSA shareholder

To help with on-farm labor while guiding future farmers, Courtens hires apprentices alongside his permanent local farm crew. In addition to paying them, Courtens establishes individual "contracts" with each apprentice that lays out his expectations and the newcomer's educational goals and provides them with a phonebook-thick manual on production practices. To provide a diverse educational experience for them, he formed a collaborative of New York and Connecticut farms that take turns hosting area apprentices at farm workshops.

"We hire the journeyman types who are serious about farming," he said. "When they leave, they have all the information they need to go out and grow vegetables."

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