by Kenneth Wajda

Picture this. You’re a Princeton kid. It’s nearing the end of the millennium. The age of business, computers and technology is soaring into the 21^st century. Wall Street is only a short drive away. The opportunities for success in medicine and law are enormous.

So what do you want to be? Doctor? Lawyer? Engineer?

Investment analyst? Computer programmer?

A farmer? Huh?

That’s the dream that’s come true for Mike Rassweiler, an organic farmer in Lambertville, NJ. Together with his wife, Julia Ritter, they’re entering their fifth growing season as a provider of fresh, organically produced vegetables to their community.

And they’re excited.

"We’re a small business and there’s nothing guaranteed about the future of the business. The one guarantee that we have is that we’ll always have to work very hard every year. And the profit margin is always going to be very small. So it’s incumbent on us to get people excited about what we do," Rassweiler explained with a grin.

North Slope Farm sits on a 55-acre tract of land on the edge of this central New Jersey river town. It’s a Community-Supported Farm, (often called Community Supported Agriculture, but as Rassweiler notes, you can’t go to an "agriculture.") And community’s what it’s all about.

The needs of the community come first.

"We’re trying to focus on what the product is we’re producing, what community we’re serving and what the community’s wants and needs are," Rassweiler explained from a sunroom inside the restored farmhouse that sits on the corner of the property.

"We have a direct contact, and the thing that’s unique about us is we really want that direct contact with the consumer," Rassweiler said.

"For me personally, it’s rewarding to talk to them."

Those consumer needs are met with over 40 different kinds of vegetables ranging from the staples, like corn, tomatoes, broccoli, onions and potatoes to specialty varieties, including daikon radishes (a Japanese radish) and Tomatillos (tomato-like but unrelated; used in fresh salsa).

It’s a satisfying feeling introducing a new vegetable to a consumer.

"Because they trust us, they’ll try it. And because we care about them eating something exciting and new, we take the time to explain it," Rassweiler adds. It’s something unexpected. It’s something they may have never seen before, but there’re recipes right at the farm to make things easy.

The specialty crops are like the salt to the main meal. That makes North Slope Farm different from your average grocery store’s veggie counter. "I feel so connected to the food that I grow that it’s of high value to me to see that the food is well used," Rassweiler said. It’s a proud feeling to have the very best crop on the table when the consumer comes to the farm.

Farming Families

There are two ways to get into farming. One way is to grow up in a farm family, learn the ropes while growing up, and then take over the farm as it’s passed on down the line.

Then there’re the first generation farmers.

Neither Rassweiler nor Ritter had any experience coming into this venture. But their families have pitched in in ways they can, like John Rassweiler, Mike’s father, who is the farm’s business manager. Retired from a career as a small businessman and consultant, he’s perfect for the farm.

"A successful farm is a big business. It’s a small business in the sense of the dollar value, but all the specialties are still there, John Rassweiler said. "You’ve got your financial managers, bookkeepers, marketing people, salespeople, and retail sales specialists and someone to farm, too. Maybe incidentally to the whole thing, someone’s got to produce the crops," he added with a laugh.

Rassweiler’s brother and sister-in-law maintain all the farm’s computers. At times, friends even come by and lend a hand with the fieldwork.

It’s all in the spirit of family—the farm family that they’ve created.

"We never questioned we could do it," Rassweiler explains. "We’ve always had the awareness that people do fantastic things all around the world. And anything that can be done will be done. We said we should set a goal and it should be a very high goal, and then we should work to obtain it."

Not an easy task without any experience in the field whatsoever.

"We thought he might be a bit crazy, in fact," his father added. But anything is possible.

"I’ve always had a very idealized vision of village life and have always felt a real spiritual connection to the land," Rassweiler explained.

In his junior year of high school at the Lawrenceville School, Rassweiler spent a semester in the Black Hills of South Dakota with a Sioux Indian tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It was a semester that had long-lasting effects on him.

"It was then that I got my first awareness that you can communicate with the land. The land is speaking to us all the time. It’s just a question of whether we’re going to listen or not," Rassweiler said.

He saw how the Sioux were conscious of the land. Being a nomadic people, their society was dictated by the land and the environment. Their religion was based on communicating with the spirits that control the weather and land.

Their tradition was much more about asking favors of the land. "The biggest thing was they considered it at all," Rassweiler points out. "They treated the land very respectfully."

The environment had become a main concern for him.

"It really started then, being very conscious of all the environmental problems we have in the world," Rassweiler said. "I came to the conclusion that the biggest thing I could do is not be part of the problem. And that could be accomplished by living very simply."

For Rassweiler, living simply meant getting food without all the packaging and waste. "The best way to do that would be to grow your own. Then you’re not involved with trucking things, so you’re not involved with using petroleum products. And you’re not involved with wrapping things and you’re not involved with cooling things in display cases," Rassweiler added. And of course there’s the waste.

Not so on the farm.

The farm is always recycling. Everything gets used and reused, from scrap metal for equipment repairs to manure for fertilizer. It resembles the old American Indian philosophy of using everything and wasting nothing.

Other simple things: They heat their house with wood that the farm produces. "Ideally that might take us away from using a lot of municipal-produced power which is very inefficient," Rassweiler said. It certainly helps cut down on waste.

All those things helped put it all together. It made sense to live on a farm, to live an agricultural life.

The main goal was to live harmoniously with the earth. Very idealistic. Not realistic. Rassweiler was determined to do it.

"We’re not purists. We eat take-out pizza," Ritter adds with a laugh.

But it is a struggle as they try to spread the word on the eve of the millennium. We do seem to be a society that embraces disposable goods for convenience, from cameras and contact lenses to fast food.

To many, going to a farm for produce seems like a step back in time. Rassweiler, however, disagrees.

I don’t think we’re moving backwards and I don’t think the community is either, "Rassweiler said. "Because of advances in science, people are really conscious of their health and what affects it."

"These may be old ideas, but they’re applicable now," Ritter said. "It’s not that we’re stepping back, but we’ve forgotten these ideas. They’re reminders that this is really the way our body is set up to be healthy."

If anything, the organic farm customer is not a throwback at all, but rather progressive.

So, the seed of the idea was planted by the time Rassweiler went to college.

As part of a project at Cook College, New Brunswick, Rassweiler wrote to several local farms and offered to work in exchange for information about their farm operations. It was a successful effort that resulted in a job for two more seasons.

"It’s a very different way to become a farmer," Ritter noted. "You could grow up on granddaddy’s farm and farm granddaddy’s way. Or you could go to five different farms and gather information from all those farmers and gather a career for yourself." Very twentieth century, this way—bringing the best elements of each of the farms together.

In the four seasons they’ve been in business, they’ve undergone tremendous changes. With their diverse background and research, they believe they have the ability to continue changing and to use those changes to create success.

Their focus is long-term for the farm. "I envision creating a farm that’ll last as long as the farms started a hundred years ago that are still operating today." Rassweiler explained.

For Rassweiler and Ritter, success means a community excited and supportive of the farm. If their mission were simply turning a profit, they would never be able to generate the low-cost or free help they’ve needed to get the farm up and growing.

They still have a long uphill road to climb. Unlike California and Europe, where buying fresh vegetables and fruits locally is a way of life, people in New Jersey don’t automatically think to buy outside the supermarket. "Right now, we have to spend so much time and energy getting people excited, teaching them the value of what we do, as opposed to being able to focus on just producing the best crop," Rassweiler said.

It’s tough when the community you’re trying to serve is very active and very used to (spoiled, even) by the constant availability of vegetables at the grocery store. Their business is structured toward easy, one-stop shopping.

A farm stand is a special trip and a special trip is often the first thing to get knocked off a busy schedule.

They’re working to change that reality and make their produce one of the community’s priorities. Because, quite simply, it’s vital.

There are very few things that are vitally important to life. Working in agriculture, they’re connected to three of the biggies: air, water and, of course, food.

At North Slope, deciding to grow organic had a lot to do with the management of the farm and the health and safety of the workers. "We don’t want to be working with chemicals, mixing them and storing them," Ritter said. "And we don’t want our workers to have to deal with them."

There are certainly conclusive studies to the hazards of chemicals in farming. No one will dispute that.

For Rassweiler, though, it even goes beyond health reasons. He wants to farm naturally because it makes for a healthier earth. It protects the soil and fosters good crops in the future.

But that’s not enough. He wants to give something back to the earth now.

While working to make North Slope a viable commercial enterprise, they’re also working to protect the land. They’ve begun a five-year project (under the parameters set forth by the NRCS, the Natural Resource Conservation Service) to bring part of the farm back to wetlands. They’ve set aside a part of the land for reclamation by wildlife and native plants.

"Ten acres is managed open space. We see it as an investment not only in the quality of the farm, but also an investment in the community. We’re trying to enhance the quality of the environment in our community," Rassweiler said. This isn’t land that’s simply abandoned and left to revert to its previous state. For decades, the land had

been farmed right up to the streams. They’re digging ditches to expand the buffer zone between waterways and around forests to allow a diversity of habitats.

It’s hard work and it costs a significant amount of money, but it’s worth it. As Rassweiler puts it, it’s paying respect to the earth.

It’s certainly a grand undertaking.

Ritter is an artist first. She has a master’s degree in dance from Temple University in Philadelphia and teaches dance at Rutgers and Rowan University. Her goal was set: To bring dance and the arts to the farm in various capacities.

She needed a venue—an organization.

Wide Open Arts is a non-profit corporation based at the farm that provides arts education and programming for individuals of the community. Four acres of the open space on the property is being maintained and managed for Wide Open Arts programs. Ritter’s hope is to use the farm as a strong source of inspiration for these arts.

"Part of our philosophy of open space is that it should be used for something. It shouldn’t just be a big open space that’s left alone," Ritter said. "I see it being used for dance, music, theatre, whatever."

"Wide Open Arts is a way for me to contribute to this county and my community," Ritter said.

Farming and gardening are arts as well. The skills involved with farming are very similar to that of the craftsman or artisan. If you go back to the early societies, art and agriculture were never separated. People would take the gourd they’d grown, eat the insides and make the gourd into a musical instrument. That’s a lineage that’s historical in terms of the link between agriculture and art.

"The harvest festival was just a big party, really," Ritter explained. "The ancient people celebrated the fertility of the soil and created a performance for the gods in thanks."

So by now, the new harvest is well underway. The summer is hopefully warm and wet. These are the staples of a

successful crop. And soon, we’ll be biting into the

Silver Queen corn and the Heirloom tomatoes we all enjoy so much.

As you read this, Rassweiler’s out in the field, working hard. He’s been there since 5:30a.m. and will be working probably until sunset. Things are in full swing. There’s hardly time for a break. (Now if he were in banking, he’d get a full hour. Probably more.)

Ritter’s working on the farm as well along with the other key players, the helpers, the workers, and the family members. His dad’s punching numbers. They’re all working together to be good stewards of the land and to provide a quality product for their community.

For theirs is a community that’s growing together.