Lakewood Ranch, Worden Farm strike up community-supported food partnership

Lakewood Ranch Communities recently announced a community supported agriculture partnership with Worden Farm of Punta Gorda.

Households are invited to become members now, paying upfront for a share of organic crops that will be harvested between the first week of December and mid-April.

Essentially, it’s a food subscription.

The consumer buys a share. Farmers use the money to grow the crop. The farmer delivers the harvest weekly to a central location. The household picks it up.

The cost of a share works out to $29 a week for a total price of $580.

You could call it “seed money for farmers.”

The fresh organic veggie boxes, delivered for 20 weeks once the crops mature, include an assortment of eight freshly grown items, including salad greens, cooking greens, root crops, fruiting vegetables and culinary herbs.

Typical contents of a veggie box, enough for two to four people, might include a head of lettuce, a bunch of kale, a bunch of carrots, a quart of tomatoes, a quart of squash, a bunch of scallions, a quart of green beans and a bunch of basil.

Members would pick up their organic produce from 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays, starting in December at the Sarasota Polo Club pavilion in Lakewood Ranch.

The idea for an organic food partnership with Chris and Eva Worden came from Monaca Onstad, director of community relations at Lakewood Ranch.

Onstad has more than a passing interest in a fresh, healthy food supply.

She comes from a farming family that grew soybeans, corn and wheat on 2,500 acres in Alabama. After her father became ill with cancer, she ran the farm for about four years.

Initially, Onstad wanted to explore organizing a farm-to-fork event, but after meeting the Wordens, she decided that there might be an opportunity for an even greater impact.

“I moved here about a year ago and went out searching for some local organic food that I could feed my family,” Onstad said. “I came across Eva and Chris and thought, ‘Wow, they are doing amazing things.’ I am assuming that the other moms in our community are going to want to do this as well. So we decided, ‘Let’s partner with Worden Farm and bring this to Lakewood Ranch for the entire community.’ ”

The Wordens founded the 85-acre Worden Farm in 2003 and brought all of their expertise to producing fresh, local organic produce for the Southwest Florida community. The produce is distributed through farmers markets and community-supported agriculture farm membership programs, like the one announced for Lakewood Ranch.

The Wordens both have masters of science degrees in horticulture. Additionally, Chris Worden has a doctorate in crop science from the University of Connecticut, and Eva Worden has a doctorate in ecosystems management from Yale University.

“We live on the farm with our two boys, and the vegetable farming is all that we do pretty much. It’s our lives,” Eva Worden said.

“We are super excited to be partnering with Lakewood Ranch with our organic veggie box program. This is a program that we have had in place throughout Southwest Florida for many years and Lakewood Ranch is our newest partner,” Eva Worden said.

“Farm members who subscribe in advance will be able to come and pick up the veggie box with eight different items every week. It’s a balanced assortment of pretty much what you want to cook with: lettuce, herbs, root crops and fruiting vegetables. It’s a surprise box every week. So it really gets you being creative and you never get tired of it. It’s like Christmas every week.”

Onstad is hoping that the community will embrace the new program, offering organic vegetables that have a higher nutritional value, taste better, last longer and are grown without the use of pesticides.

“We are prepared to grow this program as much as we can. We need the community to get behind this local food movement and really know your farmer,” Onstad said.

Eva Worden is planning to meet the public at the popular Music on Main event at Lakewood Ranch on Aug. 4, and at The Mall at University Town Center on Aug. 5.

“You need to know where your food is coming from. There is a lot of good things to come from this program,” Onstad said.

To subscribe to the new program, visit lakewoodranch.com/wordenfarm.

This story was originally published July 23, 2017 at 8:30 AM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch, Worden Farm strike up community-supported food partnership."