Intervale Community Farm grew from neighborhood demand for local organic produce, manager says

Patricia Brain visited Intervale Community Farm for Focus and asked how the operation began. Tim Laird, the farm’s manager, said the CSA started when "2 or 3 people from the Burlington community" wanted fresh, locally grown organic vegetables and adapted a European model, hiring a farmer from Massachusetts before the current staff arrived.

"In the first year, we had, I think, about 97 families that paid a certain amount of money," Laird said, describing the original membership-share arrangement that gave families a season’s worth of vegetables in return. He said the farm has since expanded and that the current season’s goal is about 130 summer shares.

Why it matters: Laird and the hosts framed the CSA as a local strategy to preserve farming livelihoods and to connect consumers directly with production, contrasting that relationship with large-scale commodity systems. Laird noted the Intervale model emphasizes shared risk and shared harvests between growers and community members.

Laird described practical beginnings (a hired farmer in the earliest year, then local organizers) and said the model has attracted other regional CSAs. The segment closes with the host saying Focus will return for a deeper conversation about building community around agriculture.

Source and provenance: This account is based on the interview with Tim Laird in the Focus segment at Intervale Community Farm (host Patricia Brain).