Farm Operations - Market Gardening at the Farm

A Heaping of Community-Supported Agriculture

Through the support of the Ohio Farmers Union Cooperative Development program, we re-organized the Jones Farm as a cooperative enterprise in 2006. The farm featured several inter-linked agrarian enterprises, including an apiary, a free-range livestock operation, a vegetable garden, a mushroom operation, composting, an herb garden, and a student-run market garden. Production expanded from 1.5 to 4 acres and total earned income from farm activities was over $45,000, a tripling over 2005. The cooperative supplied food to City Fresh, Oberlin College dining halls, a downtown farmers’ market, and other small restaurants in Oberlin and Cleveland.

Rasheed Hislop, pictured above, was one of the Oberlin College apprentices who operated the market garden. Valerie Fox, pictured with her daughter to the left, is a professional grower who provided training and oversite to the younger farmers in the operation.

Plans for the cooperative enterprise in 2007 include an expansion of value-added processing, larger-scale composting, cooperative labeling and marketing, and a market garden run by college and high school students.