When we first connected with Crisan family they were in a process of winding-down the farm. They had sold off most of their sheep and were having an increasingly hard time getting their pork meat to market. In addition to the farm they were operating a flower shop in the city to complement their income. They now provide three different types of monthly meat boxes to dozens of families in Cluj.
Yesterday Paul Boros completed his first round of weekly deliveries. Paul is passionate about permaculture and has single-handedly created the most colorful and diverse box we’ve seen in Cutia Taranului. When we spoke to him he shared with us that he was about to leave Romania because he could not find a way to translate his passion into a livelihood. Cutia Taranului was to be his last attempt, before leaving.
We were in touch with a potential new producer with a similar story, she was giving up on staying in Romania and was about to leave for work in another country. A few days later (no a box wasn’t launched) she was gone.
Yesterday Iulia came across this story of Irina Toma who grows organic blackberries and was sharing how she is being pressed by large-scale resellers to sell her top quality produce for dirt-cheap prices (so that they can resell it for 3 times as much to stores who will package it in fancy, organic-labeled boxes and sell it for twice as much, most likely in other countries).
We want you all to know that when you join a box, really join a box – including the commitment and responsibility that comes with receiving a box regularly and staying with a producer for years – when you do that you are reversing those eroding forces which are diminishing our ability to feed ourselves. It may not seem like it to you, as a single individual member. But when we look at you all together, as a whole, that is what is happening.
When you join a box you choose to keep local food production alive. When you joined the Crisan family boxes, their life and farm was turned around. When you joined Paul’s box you said to Paul „we appreciate your passion and your food, please stay”.
To us this is a vivid reminder that we have so much potential power in our hands to shape our world into the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.