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Every week in the summer, community farmers deliver fresh produce to thousands of homes across the Portland metro area. Those who get the food, shareholders, pay a couple hundred dollars a year directly to a farm, which then brings the best of that week’s harvest to the shareholders.

It’s a system that’s proposed as a model for future sustainable agriculture, and touted as a benefit of both Portland’s natural surroundings and its smart planning.

And advocates for more community supported agriculture, or CSA, type farming are hoping this month secures a strong foundation for the future.

CSA farmers want to see more land available for their industry, and more Portlanders fed by fresh food. And they hope that establishment of a large rural reserve around the Portland metro will encourage growth in the industry.

On the other hand, land conservation advocates have painted a bleak picture of Oregon’s food future if the more liberal urban reserves plan, proposed by Metro Council President David Bragdon and Councilor Carl Hosticka, is adopted. While the Bragdon-Hosticka plan would only allow for urbanization of 3 percent of the top-tier farmland around the region in the next 50 years, compared to 2 percent in 40 years in the land conservation advocates’ proposal, the difference between the two in Washington County is substantial — more than 5,100 acres.

Also worth noting is that very little food for local consumption is produced on those 5,100 acres. About 70 percent of Washington County’s farmland is used for grass seed, wheat or hay. Vegetable crops account for about 2 percent of Washington County’s farmed acreage.

On the farm

Lynn Jacobs is one of Washington County’s CSA farmers. Her La Finquita del Buho Farm, which she owns with her husband, Juvencio Argueta, feeds about 300 people for 29 weeks each year, she said.

A basket of food can include peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, chard, beets, carrots, eggplants, cabbage, onions and garlic, depending on the season.

More than a decade ago, Jacobs said, “We tilled up a large area for a family garden. But it was too much for four people at that time.”

So after some research, the subscriptions began.

“It just kind of blossomed,” she said. “We did it for 12 weeks that first season. Over time we built up our subscriptions and we actually leased from land from our neighbor across the way.”

The two acres La Finquita del Buho has in production supports 50 shares, Jacobs said.

“We could grow for more people, but it’s just my husband and I. We can’t do any more physically,” she said.

Another nearby CSA, Dos Sequoias farm, has 2.5 acres in production and grows about 48,000 pounds of food every year. Its produce is then split between 60 shareholders and Bon Appetit catering, which is the contractor for several corporate lunchrooms, including two at Intel campuses.

Laura Masterson is a self-professed urban fringe farmer, who works lots from the Woodstock neighborhood in Portland to a farm in Lake Oswego. She’s a supporter of larger rural reserves.

“The agriculture sector in the metro region is extremely diverse, and that is one of its great strengths,” she said. “The best way to maintain the viability of all of our farms is to protect our foundation farmland with significant acres of strategically placed rural reserves.”

Her fields produce about 10 tons of potatoes per acre, 14 tons of cucumbers per acre and 11 tons of tomatoes per acre.

That’s lower than the Willamette Valley totals for 2009 provided by Oregon State University’s Oregon Agricultural Information Network. The network did not have data available for Washington County.

The food risk

Consider a best-case scenario for CSAs: Metro adopts the more conservative map for reserves, designates rural reserves around Washington County’s cities and CSA farmers are able to buy now-cheaper farmland from landowners who had hoped to cash in on urbanization.

Click here to see the acreage in the competing urban reserves proposals for western Washington County, and information about crop yields in the county and Willamette Valley (pdf)

That would open up 5,159 acres for community farming in the area around Hillsboro, Cornelius, Bethany and Forest Grove.

Assuming a 10 percent reduction for infrastructure, that leaves 4,600 acres for food production. If all of the following were planted equally, based on county or Willamette Valley average yields, the land could annually produce: 96,000 bushels of apples, 386 tons of cherries, 301 tons of hazelnuts, 600 tons of wine grapes, 1,544 tons of strawberries, 9,650 tons of onions, 15,000 tons of carrots, 3,821 tons of corn, 9,843 tons of tomatoes, 772 tons of garlic, 8,878 tons of cucumbers and 5,133 tons of squash (including zucchini).

How much food is that?

Here’s a number to chew on — last year, Fred Meyer, in its 130 Pacific Northwest stores, sold 6,279 tons of tomatoes, 5,250 tons of corn and 1,400 tons of zucchini.

How to get there

Clearly, the above numbers represent a rosy scenario. Not all landowners will sell or lease to small farmers if they’re in a rural reserve. Nursery stock remains a very, very lucrative industry — of Washington County’s $224 million in agriculture sales in 2009, $110 million came from nursery stock, compared to less than $3 million in vegetables and $15 million in berries.

But to encourage food production, land conservation advocates say more rural reserves need to be established — and close to cities.

“The closer we are to serving our markets, the better our carbon credits and general ecological footprint looks, and the better our bottom line looks,” said Masterson, who estimated CSA farmers gross between $10,000 and $20,000 per acre each year.

And a rural reserve designation is key to making land purchases viable, advocates say.

“If it was protected and the price of land was controlled, I do think people could come in and buy land and lease land and grow food,” Jacobs said. “Part of the problem in Helvetia is all this speculation, people holding onto land in hopes of being able to sell it one day.”