A Healthy Beginning

After 40 years at the Sisters of Notre Dame convent school, Annette and Kay Fernholz returned to their family home in Louisberg, Minnesota and with the help of the convent established Earthrise Farm in 1996. It was a risky, but hopeful start for the sisters and their first year they had only seven shareholders. Their second year, they expanded to 20 members, followed by 30 the next year and 45 in the fourth. Members are partners in the garden, sharing the risks as well as rewards. Members receive a weekly share of 8-22 lb. of food for 22 weeks, a newsletter update on garden activities, cooking tips, folklore relating to the produce and free access to take part in “their” garden.

Earthrise Farm acquired its name from the first moon landing, when an astronaut said, “We have seen the splendor of Earth rise above the horizon of the moon.” The sisters feel it announces the coming of a new paradigm. They hope that people will gradually discover that “we have no existence apart from this Living Earth.” Their part in realizing this shift is to provide their community with organic, chemical-free food.

A Cultural Influence

Earthrise is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm whose goal is to help close the gap between consumers and producers and change the pattern of land use and food security in this country from corporate-run to small, independent-run farms. The Fernholz sisters follow the model of “teikei,” a Japanese approach where small farms provide their neighbors and communities with fresh fruits and vegetables and, in return, families make a lasting commitment to the farm. The American model of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) closely resembles the principle of teikei.

“When the earth begins to take away the purity of the rain, balance of its climate, the fruitfulness of its soil, the oxygen we breathe, we feel it in our souls,” say the sisters. “To begin a recovery of reverence of which we were derived is to sense a sacred presence in the winds, sounds and scenery of the earth.” The sisters are beginning a recovery of their land through their garden and bringing community in through their CSA. They insist that their garden is not “our garden, but their [community members] garden” and invite everyone to take part in helping and watching the splendor of the earth as their garden follows nature’s cycle.

The sisters grow a variety of food, including:

* green beans,
* winter squash,
* asparagus,
* broccoli,
* Swiss chard,
* spinach,
* cucumbers,
* peppers,
* beets,
* egg plant,
* potatoes,
* tomatoes,
* cantaloupe,
* watermelon,
* pumpkins,
* assorted herbs and more.

Full members pay $300.00, and half members pay $200.00. A flexible payment plan allows payments to be made in installments of $25.00 or more.

A Community at the Dinner Table

“It has been said, in a market economy, that we vote with our dollars,” say the Fernholz sisters. With this in mind, they want Earthrise Farm to provide families and communities the opportunity to “cast a vote for the type of food system, the type of land use, and ultimately, the type of community they want each time they sit down at the dinner table.” Earthrise Farm not only provides this service to its community, but it also facilitates community gatherings, celebrations, and various activities, such as an annual Environmental Sabbath Service.

The Environmental Earth Sabbath is modeled after the 1972 United Nations Environment Program to fight pollution and preserve the earth’s natural resources. The Earthrise Sabbath has different activities every year that celebrate the earth as it takes participants symbolically through its 15 billion years on the farm’s Meditation Path.

A Balance of Three

Earthrise Farm is organized around three components: The New Story, Bioregionalism and Eco-Spirituality. The New Story is realizing people are “the latest unfolding species of an unbroken process of divine creativity that began in a stupendous explosion 15 billion years ago.” Bioregionalism is realizing that each region is determined by its animals, flowers, grass, soil, water, climate, and land formations.

“We humans, the youngest species to arrive in a bioregion, must make its rhythms our patterns, its laws our guide, its fruit our bounty,” declare the sisters. Eco-Spirituality is realizing that “just as the human body took shape over these 15 billion years, so the human psyche has been unfolding.” Eco-Spirituality also means recovering the matter we were created from and reconnecting with the earth.

Garden Angels

The Fernholz sisters have great vision and plans for their farm. Currently, they host seasonal interns who stay in a trailer house on their land and help work the land. The sisters also bring “gardenangels”, children and high school students, to their garden to help during the summer. They hope to sponsor more literary classes, creative writing workshops, and invite young artists to these classes. They would also like to learn more about herbs and their many uses. The Fernholz sisters “dare” their community to “join them” in revitalizing and restoring the earth.

The response to their diverse gardens amid fields of corn and soybeans is growing every year through increased community participation and awareness of Earthrise Farm and its values. Community members are willing to hope, to take a leap of faith and explore Earthrise’s CSA or “food with a farmers face on it.”