this story is a short compilation of excerpts from presley’s journal during the 1980’s that piece together the harsh reality of living in a food desert in the northern adirondacks of new york. her words uncover the strong connection between a low-income and the chances at a nutritious meal, as she continuously compares her refrigerator to charlotte’s, her affluent best friend.

though this is a fictional story, it is based off of real life circumstances, as many areas in the northern adirondacks remain a classified food desert, which is an area where low-income and marginalized residents struggle to obtain healthy and nutritious food. this can be due to factors such as not owning a car, the lack of existing grocery stores, and poor quality of the fruits and vegetables that are available.

in her journal, she quickly discovers the benefits of a system based in csa. from facilitating a connection with the food you find on your plate and strengthening community ties, all the way to nurturing the earth and decreasing the distance and time between the farm to the table. her persistence and dedication to the mission of feeding the community serves as an inspiration and shines a light on the present-day need to continue moving forward and growing the csa movement.

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march 3, 1984


the winters here are long and heavy, and by march they feel just about endless. our bodies are tired, deficient of vitamins and minerals, because there is no sun to be seen here in the mountains for months, and my mom’s dinner plates typically lack any color at all. here in the north country, frozen cuisines are accepted as okay and “if it gets the job done, that's good enough.” or at least thats my dad’s mantra. i can't seem to accept it though.

my best friend charlotte lives about 45 minutes away, just one town over. but, whenever i make the trip out to visit her, i feel like i’m on another planet. there's a health food store, and it seems like there is a farmers market perfectly situated on every corner. charlotte's mom makes the most delicious and fulfilling dinners. the plate is always made with just the right amount of color. the darkest collard greens to the brightest, most perfectly ripened tomatoes. after we eat, i feel so energized, it's almost as if i can hear my own body whispering to me, “thank you.”

charlotte doesn't know this, but secretly, i try to plan our hang-outs around meal-times. i feel as if i’m being resourceful. sometimes i sleepover at charlotte's for the entire weekend. this always leaves my mom wondering. rightfully so-- my mom asks me why charlotte never comes to our house, or if i am too embarrassed. honestly, i am. i am afraid we won’t have anything to eat.

it's hard for my parents, they're always working extra shifts, and sometimes the grocery store closes before they get home from work, and since its over seven miles away i can't walk. or when we do get there, the only thing they seem to have is wrapped in plastic or has been trapped in a can for years.

winter is coming to an end soon, and the iga has two rows of cereal, half of them are already expired. the fruit is moldy and the vegetables have been picked way too early. everything seems to be working against my family and a meal filled with nutrition. i can’t seem to understand the unfathomable difference between my refrigerator and charlotte’s.


march 7, 1984


i dream a lot. the journal next to my bed is filled with many of them. i like reading them months later and trying to pick apart the meanings. about half of them are abstract, filled with forest fairies, and the other half are filled with characters from my reality. once, i dreamt of a planet returned to its state before humans of greed and desire took from her. in another dream, my family and i ate the freshest salad with the crispiest pears. my mom naturally dressed the salad with juicy oranges and the spiciest red peppers. my journal after this dream read “how did that food get there? how can that food get here?”

then, i had an idea.


march 17, 1984


in my town we don't have a fancy health food store, but we do have land. we have fertile soil, and a solid rain cycle. and although the winters here are long, i know there are plants that can thrive seasonally. winters can be home to root vegetables and strong leafy greens, like kale and spinach. i want to switch my focus and provide for my family and my community. to the people that work the hardest and receive the least. to the people that deserve nutritious fuel for their bodies and a stronger connection with the earth.

i told my parents about my dreams and the ideas that followed, and to say the least, they looked at me funny. like it was some unfeasible idea that could never be. as if accessible healthy food must remain a luxury. once again, something i will not accept.

so i set out, and i started reading books like “four season harvest” by eliot coleman, where i learned about the possibilities of farming beyond the summer months and discovered new techniques and strategies for growing. i also began visiting farms beyond my town borders. while visiting, i would observe, listen, and ask probably way too many questions, but i don't care because i am determined, and definitely onto something.


march 25, 1984


i finally feel ready to turn this dream into a reality. to be able to provide nutritious, affordable, and accessible food to my community has become my mission. today i went out for a walk, a very long walk. i knocked on the doors of my neighbors and i began to tell them about my idea, and if they wanted to be a part of it. i tried to explain to them the best that i could, how important it is for them to eat from the earth, an idea that believe it or not, seemed very abstract for many.

but it wasn't all doom and gloom and misunderstandings. i got 7 people all from my neighborhood to sign up for a share of my growing this season. since i need money upfront to buy tools, seeds, and soils, you know the whole 9 yards, i requested a donation. for the most part, all 7 people that signed up are really excited and offered me more than i expected. i guess this has been a long time coming.



march 30, 1984


seeds are in, here's to change and to more color on our plates.

they have everything at whole foods, so much so that i cannot stop myself from buying much more than i need. of course i need my kale salad, walnuts, and stuffed grape leaves, but what about those coconut covered dates for dessert, and a synergy kombucha to top it all off; don’t i need a smoothie from their café in case i’m still hungry when i’m done with all this? the answer is always yes, yet even with all these exotic products at the slightest whim, i hardly stop to wonder where they’ve all come from.

beautiful marketing, organic labeling, and a seemingly local vibes at this national chain function the way they are supposed to, to sell a particular story. the bag of coffee i bought for $12.99 is fair trade, organic, and features a nicely painted picture of a dark-skinned woman with a woven basket on her head; i feel glad that my dollars are going to the local people in a less developed country who picked these coffee beans.

in her book, “from modern production to imagined primitive,” paige west outlines the truth behind this pretty picture. that bag of coffee might have beans from at least five different countries: maybe some from papua new guinea or brazil, or vietnam, columbia, indonesia, perhaps ethiopia. and these workers? they are getting paid 16 cents an hour. a wage, which, according to west makes one bag of coffee worth about $1.40 in papua new guinea. so where does that extra $11.59 cost come from?

of course there’s the impact of the distances these beans have traveled. the umbrella figure for this fact is that our food travels, on average, between 1,500 and 2,500 miles before reaching our plate. while this figure is an oversimplification, being an exaggeration for some foods yet an underestimate for others, it rightly displays the incredible distances that our food travels in order to reach our plates. the carbon footprint is immense. moreover, according to waterfootprint.org, the water footprint is for global coffee consumption is 1.5 times the annual runoff of the rhine river – 110 billion cubic meters of water per year.

why has our food system developed this way if it is unsustainable, inequitable, and economically only profitable to large monopoly organizations? the answer is that it has developed organically according to the capitalist, colonialist model to which it belongs.

but just because something develops organically does not mean it is the best model, and it especially does not mean that it cannot be changed to work within the same system.

in fact, changing the model has the capacity to change the flawed system. that makes it our responsibility to change both.

the company freight farms is doing just that: by providing a scalable, local agricultural solution in the form of the leafy green machine. the leafy green machine features a series of vertical panels that hold hydroponic peat moss growing pods in which lettuce, hearty greens, herbs, flowers, and root vegetables will thrive.

these panels find their home in a re-used shipping container, insulated in order to complement the container’s advanced climate control system, and equipped with blue and red led light strips, using only the light frequencies that the plants need. accordingly, each container uses only about 125 kilowatt-hours per day. it also is highly conservative in its water use: due to the vertical nature of the hydroponic operation, the pods use only about 5 gallons of water per day — 90% less water than traditional farming techniques.

each leafy green machine is capable of producing between 60 and 100 pounds of greens per week and between 35 and 85 pounds of herbs for only 15 to 20 hours of labor per week. this yield is the rough equivalent of one acre’s worth of lettuce in traditional agriculture, according to the company. all of the systems controls are directly available through an app at all hours of the day and from all locations. the enclosed environment of the system protects it from pests and disease, so it produces a nearly perfect yield without the use of pesticides or herbicides.

the containers can be situated in a backyard, on a rooftop, or in a parking lot, offering an “acre in a box” that is accessible to anyone in any location, providing the freshest, most local produce possible.

the containers are in use in 30 different states and nine countries, supplying food to universities, restaurants, and local farmers’ markets.

in fact, nick pagan from clark university said, “on harvest days i deliver the lettuce around 10:30, lunch service starts at 11, so students are getting produce that was harvested just a half an hour ago.”

imagine regularly eating food that had been harvested 30 minutes before you ate it, as opposed to the average of 5-14 days during which your food is transported and stored post harvest. imagine having the choice to eat produce that did not travel 1,500 miles and contribute massive amounts of greenhouse gases in order to reach your plate. image supporting your local economy instead of exporting that extra $11.59 to large, inequitable corporations.

the leafy green machine provides a market solution to our flawed food system, and its success can inspire similar creative thinking and new businesses that will open up this market space and begin shifting the entire system in this sustainable, equitable, and economically beneficial direction.

one solution put forward is a method for growing food vertically in enclosed, self-contained domes that also have the potential to absorb co2 (and generate valuable carbon credits) and locally produce mineral and nutrition-rich vegetables and fruit aeroponically. one estimate i read recently says that a one acre greenhouse has the potential to grow up to 20 times the produce an acre of land will produce using traditional methods. since plants are not grown in soil, greenhouse facilities can be located almost anywhere. these facilities will greatly reduce the need to transport produce long distances (the average produce travels 1500 miles in the us and an apple in canada for example, is transported more than 2500 miles) and offer the potential to reap huge returns to investors participating in the right projects.

a few companies have taken up this challenge to produce healthy and i would be interested in learning more about who they are and how they are addressing the challenge to reduce food without the use of petroleum products (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungacides, etc.).