Please note: We are still formulating our 2024 CSA Share details!
Below is the info for 2023 CSA shares, not necessarily accurate to 2024.
How we come up with our Sliding Scale Pricing Structure:
Wild Hill Farm is not just in the business of growing vegetables -- our mission is to help build community through healthy food & love of the land, and more recently, to empower the next generation of women farmers! We are not a non-profit, but a small family-owned LLC. We do not receive grant funding for our work, but rely on the sale of CSA memberships to run our whole budget.
I've recently priced out the retail value of a Full Share of Wild Hill Farm organically-grown produce. When you include our U-Pick garden offerings, it comes to easily over $1,500 ($750 for a Half Share). This does not include the other values the farm offers our community:
Our Bottom Line:
The business of being a small farm in today’s economy does not actually make any money. I've been trying to balance our 2023 budget: Can you believe that over ⅔ of our farm expenses are labor ? We have invested in equipment to help us be more efficient, but vegetables are really delicate & simply labor intensive – everything gets harvested and washed by hand. Farming is hard work, and small farms like ours fold all the time. Wild Hill Farm has been around for 7 years now, feeding hundreds of families, but unless the farmers are making ends meet and taking care of themselves, the model is not sustainable. As you write your check to Wild Hill Farm for next season, please think of the reality that over half of it goes directly into the pockets of hardworking badass farmers who would love to keep growing food for you as long as their bodies, minds, and souls are nourished!
Everyone knows costs have increased. Fuel, seeds, supplies, everything. We have raised the bottom of the sliding scale a little. We have raised the upper limit quite a bit, to encourage those who can afford to do so to truly support our long-term existence in the community.
Our Sliding Scale CSA Share Pricing for 2023:
***SLIDING SCALE MEANS YOU CAN PAY WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN THIS RANGE****
------------------------------------------
WHF CSA Half Share: $480 - $1,000
WHF CSA Full Share: $850 - $2,000
------------------------------------------
SUGGESTED LEVELS OF SUPPORT FOR 2023:
“True Sustainer” membership: $1,000 Half Share / $2,000 Full Share
“Retail Value” membership: $750 Half Share / $1,500 Full Share
“Average Family” membership: $650 Half Share / $1,300 Full Share
“Low Income Family” membership: $480 Half Share / $850 Full Share
The "True Sustainer" level of share payment is about more than just the vegetables you get each week. It supports our mission to help build a vibrant land-based community and be able to sustain ourselves locally for years to come. It allows some families to pay what they can and still have access to fresh organic food. I encourage you to think about if this is a possibility for you and how much of an impact it has on our community and the hundreds of tables full of food and abundance we have created here together.
The amount you pay is up to you, and you can pay anything within the sliding scale range. You are welcome to pay in your own installment plan too, as long as you are paid in full by June 13th. The farm’s budget depends on your membership contributions. Our ability to pay our workers fairly, and continue farming as sustainably as possible into the future, hinges on our CSA members' support. Thank you so much!
Farmer Erin
If you have any questions, email me at erin.dandelion@gmail.com
Below is the info for 2023 CSA shares, not necessarily accurate to 2024.
How we come up with our Sliding Scale Pricing Structure:
Wild Hill Farm is not just in the business of growing vegetables -- our mission is to help build community through healthy food & love of the land, and more recently, to empower the next generation of women farmers! We are not a non-profit, but a small family-owned LLC. We do not receive grant funding for our work, but rely on the sale of CSA memberships to run our whole budget.
I've recently priced out the retail value of a Full Share of Wild Hill Farm organically-grown produce. When you include our U-Pick garden offerings, it comes to easily over $1,500 ($750 for a Half Share). This does not include the other values the farm offers our community:
- THE EXPERIENCE: Offering a peaceful and relaxing space to experience the abundance and diversity of fertile organic farmland – an “open farm” for members to enjoy.
- MENTORSHIP: Our apprenticeship program trains the next generation of food growers for a sustainable future in our region. I have trained over 30 beginning farm apprentices since I started farming in the Rochester area, many of whom have stayed local and started their own farms in the area.
- EDUCATION: Showing kids where food comes from, through weekly exposure in our U-Pick gardens and field trip visits we offer local schools. We offer summer jobs for local teenagers too!
- LAND STEWARDSHIP: We keep 56 acres of cropland free of toxic pesticides in our community. This would almost definitely all be chemically farmed if we were not here. We have not sprayed anything on this land since we started stewarding the land seven years ago.
- EMPOWERMENT: We are empowering local female farmers to succeed and support each other in a male-dominated field. Wild Hill Farm has been woman-owned and operated for 7 years, and has been powered by an almost all-female staff.
- CLIMATE ACTION: We take carbon from the air and put it back in the soil where it belongs. Soil tests show that we are steadily building organic matter in our fields through our diligent use of cover crops. Did you know that we plant 7 acres of vegetables and 7 acres of cover crops each year? Organic matter is a real way of tracking the level of carbon which is being taken from the atmosphere to store in the soil. We are committed to taking land sustainability to the next level.
- COMMUNITY BUILDING: We host events like our barn dances which build real community through the common ground of music and food. We hope to have more of these events in the future, building off our groundwork of over 350 participating families.
- FOOD SECURITY: Over the last 7 years we have grown over 200,000 lbs of organic food for our community. We donate hundreds of pounds of extra produce each summer to our local food pantry, and through your generosity we've been able to offer a few free shares locally to families in need, and also a few refugee families.
Our Bottom Line:
The business of being a small farm in today’s economy does not actually make any money. I've been trying to balance our 2023 budget: Can you believe that over ⅔ of our farm expenses are labor ? We have invested in equipment to help us be more efficient, but vegetables are really delicate & simply labor intensive – everything gets harvested and washed by hand. Farming is hard work, and small farms like ours fold all the time. Wild Hill Farm has been around for 7 years now, feeding hundreds of families, but unless the farmers are making ends meet and taking care of themselves, the model is not sustainable. As you write your check to Wild Hill Farm for next season, please think of the reality that over half of it goes directly into the pockets of hardworking badass farmers who would love to keep growing food for you as long as their bodies, minds, and souls are nourished!
Everyone knows costs have increased. Fuel, seeds, supplies, everything. We have raised the bottom of the sliding scale a little. We have raised the upper limit quite a bit, to encourage those who can afford to do so to truly support our long-term existence in the community.
Our Sliding Scale CSA Share Pricing for 2023:
***SLIDING SCALE MEANS YOU CAN PAY WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN THIS RANGE****
------------------------------------------
WHF CSA Half Share: $480 - $1,000
WHF CSA Full Share: $850 - $2,000
------------------------------------------
SUGGESTED LEVELS OF SUPPORT FOR 2023:
“True Sustainer” membership: $1,000 Half Share / $2,000 Full Share
“Retail Value” membership: $750 Half Share / $1,500 Full Share
“Average Family” membership: $650 Half Share / $1,300 Full Share
“Low Income Family” membership: $480 Half Share / $850 Full Share
The "True Sustainer" level of share payment is about more than just the vegetables you get each week. It supports our mission to help build a vibrant land-based community and be able to sustain ourselves locally for years to come. It allows some families to pay what they can and still have access to fresh organic food. I encourage you to think about if this is a possibility for you and how much of an impact it has on our community and the hundreds of tables full of food and abundance we have created here together.
The amount you pay is up to you, and you can pay anything within the sliding scale range. You are welcome to pay in your own installment plan too, as long as you are paid in full by June 13th. The farm’s budget depends on your membership contributions. Our ability to pay our workers fairly, and continue farming as sustainably as possible into the future, hinges on our CSA members' support. Thank you so much!
Farmer Erin
If you have any questions, email me at erin.dandelion@gmail.com
Wild Hill Farm, PO Box 103, Ionia, NY 14475 * 585-455-1260 * erin@wildhillfarm.com