Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

May is here and along with it comes longer days, warmer temperatures and fresh Alabama grown produce. Nothing quite unifies our state like the great tasting strawberries, tomatoes, peaches, melons and more that our farmers grow each year. Festivals fill our calendars as our communities enjoy the seasonal splendor that has helped define our southern culture. The bounty will fill grocery stores, farm stands, and farmers markets from Foley to Madison. 

At Aquality Farms in Anniston, we aren’t your standard farm. We stand on less than one acre of land and don’t have any plants growing in soil. In a 6,000 square foot warehouse we produce 500 pounds of gourmet mushrooms, 400 pounds of hydroponic lettuce and 50 pounds of microgreens a week. We sell to grocery stores, farmers markets, restaurants, direct to consumer and soon to be large distributors with our recent GAP Certification. However, the most impactful and important buyer is our very own community.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has its origin story in Alabama when the Tuskegee professor and Calhoun County native Booker T Whatley started “clientele membership clubs” in the 1960s. The clubs allowed members to pick and pay for their own produce and gave farmers upfront capital, shared responsibility and mutual support for the crop. Whatley, a pioneer in sustainable farm practices and agribusiness saw the fundamental problems that directly affected the success of small farms like revenue streams, unpredictability and land health. 

One of the key components of a CSA program is the communal crossroad that occurs as urban and rural collide over a common need. The desire for fresh, local products from trusted farmers and artisans. Being able to see where the cattle grazes, the orchards and fields your produce grows in is resonating more than ever with communities across the state. More people are understanding the negative health consequences from artificial, processed foods and are looking for natural, whole foods. 

Our CSA Program is called “The Harvest Box” it features locally sourced meats, cheeses, produce, bread, eggs, honey, jams and other rotating small business products. We include a weekly recipe card from a local caterer that incorporates most of the products into a delicious dinner. The community response has been positive, and the ingredients have become more than just a meal. It has become a conversation at the dinner table. A conversation about Alabama’s agricultural resources, farming practices, seasonality, cuts of meat, styles of cooking and the creativity needed to bring them all together for a culinary masterpiece. 

There wasn’t a CSA Program in Calhoun County when Aquality Farms was created two years ago. It has helped establish our farm as a trusted source of sustainably grown, local products and supporter of all those in the space. I urge anyone who has thought about or would like to start a community-based program to see what works best for the local farms and people in the area. The power of Alabama grown products to unite and propel us forward is very much real and it takes all of us championing each other to make a positive impact for generations to come.