Farm Profile Rethinking the CSA Model Blackfire Farm Creates a Market-Style Format for CSA Customers — Including Pizza

Douglas Higley and Elizabeth White are interested in regenerative agriculture, methods of farming that nurture the health of the land instead of depleting it. This kind of agriculture relies on cultivating a diversity of plants, animals and skills. It has been clear for some time that it is not healthy for our soil if we specialize. It turns out it is better for the farmers, too, leaving room for the individual expression of a farmer's talents. The CSA model allows for farmers to lean into small-scale production that favors diversity. Still, Blackfire Farm defies and expands the confines of this model, offering low-till produce, pastured chicken and rabbit, pork and even offers wood-fired pizza. &emsp;&emsp;Blackfire Farm shows incredible creativity in designing its markets to maximize sales and minimize waste. Farms that take on direct sales have the daunting task of not only being farmers but also managing interim storage of delicate vegetables. Produce has an incredibly short shelf life. Whatever doesn't get used the same day or the next day represents a significant loss for a farm like Blackfire. &emsp;&emsp;Most small CSA farms reduce this risk by not giving customers a choice about the vegetables they receive. Curating a basket for customers means the farm can harvest exact quantities. It also has the additional merit of introducing customers to new produce and may single-handedly be responsible for creating loyal ranks of kohlrabi cooks. However, the practice could be seen as primarily passing the waste on to customers who might end up composting or throwing out produce they didn't plan to use. This conventional share design was what Blackfire Farm did in their first season in the summer of 2020. That season, Higley and White grew a dizzying diversity of vegetables, including 15 different kinds of radishes. Some customers enjoyed the subtle differences, one spicier, one sweeter. But after trying all 15, one CSA customer declared his hatred of radishes still decidedly intact. Not all their customers were the same, and the couple decided that they stopped trying to treat them as such. Pizza in the CSA basket In the 2021 season, Blackfire Farm did not dictate the contents of a customer's CSA. Instead, CSA customers were given a pre-loaded spending card to spend on anything at the stand, including meat and pizza when available. Providing their customers this opportunity for customization put Higley and White in a vulnerable position of unknown supply and demand. Still, they blithely dodged this with more creativity, a plan that could be coined: a market, before a market, before a pizza, before a pig. &emsp;&emsp;Higley and White harvest and wash on Thursday night and Friday morning, before their CSA pickup and pop-up market on Friday evenings. What doesn't get sold that night will spend the night tucked in their newly completed walk-in cooler before heading to the Saturday Keene Farmers' market or turned into pizza toppings for their wood-fired pizza events, often held at popular Saturday night venues. Any last produce will be paid forward to the Gleaners from the Keene Community Kitchen at the end of the market or to the happy pastured hogs back at the farm. &emsp;&emsp;Higley and White worked with David Young and the Hancock Depot Association to position their CSA pickup on the town green. Creating a market-style format for CSA customers also allowed the farm to open the "pickup" to other sales, making a centrally located pop-up farm stand. This location maximizes their contact with the community, reaching more people with local produce and meat, and reduces the commute for many, allowing some even to walk to pick up their CSA. It also has the added benefit of reducing traffic on the residential road to the farm. &emsp;&emsp;Other farms offer vegetables and pasture-raised meats, but "I think we are the only farm that offers pizza with our CSA," says White. &emsp;&emsp;The blistering wood-fired pies have been an important signature for the farm, a canvas for the literal fruits of their labor. The couple swears by their dough, the Neapolitan dough from Bread Shed, a local connection they made at the Keene Farmers' market. Blackfire's pizza oven trailer and accompanying pop-up fire up about once a week for a full day at a location that is accessible to as many people as possible. Regular locations have included Granite Roots Brewing in Troy, and Post and Beam Brewery in Peterborough. Blackfire Farm's oven, capable of turning out three pies at a time, had a fully booked calendar in 2021. An upgrade is currently under construction, a fully enclosed 18-foot pizza production trailer with an oven capable of cooking up to 10 pies at a time. &emsp;&emsp;Because of the professionalism of the products, it is easy to forget that Blackfire Farm has only been in production for two years. In 2020, they took on just 15 members for their CSA, doubling that number in 2021. In the winter of 2022, they plan to open up membership to an additional 15 members, prioritizing existing members. Farmers at heart Blackfire Farm may be new, both Higley and White have been working towards this endeavor for most of their professional lives. &emsp;&emsp;Higley left fine dining eight years ago to take a gap year on a farm to see the backside of food production. His internship at Freedom Food Farm in Raynham, Massachusetts, turned into a career change. He was still there three years later when he met White at the farm stand. White remembers Higley as "outgoing and confident," and their courtship centered on food, in the fields where White worked as a volunteer one day a week and over the table sharing some really good food. &emsp;&emsp;White, who had been working as an animal behaviorist, started working more hours on the farm, "As a farmer, you take care of the plants and animal's health, and in return, you take on a lot of physical and mental health," says White. &emsp;&emsp;The two lived at Freedom Food Farm in a tiny house built by Higley and saved to transition to their own project. In the fall of 2019, they moved to Higley's family land in Hancock, made available by his mother, Shea Higley. They brought with them their seed garlic and a 100-by-200-foot silage tarp. They staked it into the land before the first frost, letting time do its work of turning pasture into open soil. This was the beginning of their ½ acre low-till market garden situated on the only flat portion of the farm's land. &emsp;&emsp;The rest of the land, nine hilly acres, is used for rotational grazing and mobile pasture for their chickens, rabbits, pigs and Katahdin sheep. Slaughtering and butchering onsite to reduce stress to the animals is incredibly important to the couple, and they process animals weekly, about 500 chickens and 200 rabbits during the growing season. The chickens are sold to Waterhouse restaurant in Peterborough, and both rabbits and chickens are available to CSA and farmers' market patrons. The sheep, which White said "are excellent grazers and mothers with an exploratory palette," play an essential role in managing the pasture, which they are planting with black locust to provide forage for the sheep and extra nitrogen for the grass. &emsp;&emsp;White's work as an animal behaviorist is not to be underestimated. Knowing how to create positive living environments for farm animals requires a careful understanding of what conditions make animals thrive. Additionally, moving pastured animals from place to place requires doing it in a way to cause the least amount of stress. Her work is key to making the farm function, and it also serves as an additional income stream. White still works as a dog trainer through her business, Sweetwolf Training. &emsp;&emsp;The farm put up a new 30-by-96-foot high tunnel this past November, thanks to an NRCS grant. By late winter, White will sow early greens, and Higley has plans for hardy figs that will one day grace a pizza, hot from the oven, kissed with fire. &emsp;&emsp;Learn more at blackfirefarmnh.com/.