By Ann Duwe

Producing edibles in a sustainable way and making sure the farmer gets a just price are parts of Slow Food’s mission.

Now that the Valley of Heart’s Delight grows gadgets instead of prize-winning fruit, produce in local farmers’ markets often comes from the far reaches of the county or from coastal San Mateo and San Benito counties. In spite of the distance, these farmers are expanding their markets through Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, the formal name for subscription farming.

To learn more about the future of America’s small farms as well as how community supported agriculture is practiced locally, the public is invited to a free screening of the documentary “Broken Limbs: Apples, Agriculture and the New American Farmer,” 7:30 tonight at the Los Altos Main Library. The film is sponsored by Slow Food Silicon Valley and the Library. Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farm will explain how subscription farming works.

Slow Food is an international organization with a U.S. membership of more than 80,000. Initially the organization promoted the pleasures of the table, with an emphasis on food and wine that were traditional, seasonal, artisanal. Later the need to protect endangered food plants and animals was added to the agenda along with the determination to produce edibles in a sustainable way. A just return to the farmer is also part of Slow Food’s platform.

Two Small Farms, with headquarters in Watsonville, is doing commercially what Slow Food advocates philosophically - they grow and deliver fresh, organic produce through direct sales as well as through subscription farming. The company is made up of Mariquita Farm and High Ground Organics.

“You buy a subscription from us the same way you buy a subscription to Time or Newsweek. Instead of a magazine each week, you receive a share of fresh, locally grown fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers or some combination thereof,” explains Julia Wiley, a principal in Mariquita Farm. “Subscriptions can run for nine weeks for approximately $180 or for a year for approximately $690. There is even a four-week trial subscription available to new members for $80.

“Every week our customers get a big box of fruits and vegetables bursting with flavor and nutrition. Everything is picked within 24 hours of delivery,” she added. “Don’t know a rutabaga from arugula? Not to worry. A newsletter included in the box clears up these ambiguities, encourages you to experiment and gives you many choices for fixing vegetables you eat regularly.

“Sometimes you need to be creative when the weather or other factors create a surplus,” said Wiley, with the wry look of one who has burned the midnight oil searching for yet another recipe for zucchini.

Subscription farming stands in sharp contrast to supermarkets, which know no seasons. One can get anything almost anytime; the transaction is entirely impersonal. The tomatoes one buys in January, or even in June, are likely to have been engineered to withstand a good hard shake from a mechanical claw, a journey of thousands of miles, weeks of storage and a quick blast of ethylene gas to make them red.

“Your CSA subscription will never give you tomatoes in May,” Wiley points out. “In May your box will be full of luscious lettuce, spinach and strawberries picked at the point of ripeness. In August you receive many varieties of sun-ripened tomatoes exploding with true tomato flavor.” In Wiley’s experience “this is a treat worth waiting for!”

Besides nutrition and flavor, there are additional benefits to the subscription arrangement. Subscribers know exactly where their food comes from; they can call the farmers with questions. Two Small Farms arranges special events and encourages subscribers to visit to see first-hand how it all gets done - the hoeing, weeding, ditch-digging, fertilizing, harvesting and packing. For Wiley and her husband, Andy Griffin, creating the connection to nature and the seasons is as important a goal for their work as nutrition.

For more information, call the public library at 948-7683 or check the Slow Food Web site at: www.slowfoodsiliconvalley.org.