NURTURING LIVES THROUGH LOCAL, BIODYNAMICALLY GROWN FOOD How Happy Heart Farm became the first CSA program in Colorado
PHOTO BY DARREN MAHURON, SUMMIT STUDIOS
BY JANELLE BUXTON
The world begins at the kitchen table. No matter what we must eat to live. - JOY HARJO I SAT DOWN with Bailey Stenson at their kitchen table on a spring afternoon. She had just prepared a latelunch after a morning on-the-go, as farm planting preparations are quickly on the horizon. Bailey gave me a warm smile, characteristic of her, as we began to talk about Colorado’s original CSA.
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THE EARLY YEARS
The story begins in 1983, when Dennis and Bailey Stenson traded their first business venture, a mountain-bike tour company, for a life better suited for a family and children. “It was a lot of gear to haul with kids,” Bailey said. After having their second child, the young couple purchased an old dairy farm on West Elizabeth Street in Fort Collins. Six years later, in 1989, Bailey and Dennis went to a conference in California and learned about a concept called community supported agriculture (CSA). A CSA is a food production and distribution system that directly connects farmers and consumers. Excited about the model, in 1990 Bailey and Dennis founded Happy Heart
Farm, which was the first food distribution system of it’s kind in Colorado. Their first year in business had its challenges, Bailey recalled. She and Dennis had to learn “how to make our own planting schedule, how much to plant and how often.” The internet wasn’t available back then, so Happy Heart CSA members would call each other—using a phone tree system where a few members would call a few more—when produce was ready.
MENTORING, SHARING, GROWING
Their early experiences led the Stensons to mentor hundreds of people and to start a “working member” program. Each year there are a dozen or so working members who support the farmers, apprentices and fellow members are the