The inaugural farm has successfully completed the first testing phase.

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The human diet is highly variable, historically consisting of whatever a place could provide and what the culture made from that. We are developing our own local food culture that is constrained by local ecology, but rich in potential as we have so much global history and materials to draw from. 

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The first part of our research is determining what people choose to eat when given the chance to grow food for themselves. How much do they prioritize  produce versus grains and beans, oil seeds, or meat? For how much of the year do people strive to cover their food needs? How does the farm’s abundance influence overall dietary quality? How is dietary quality associated with effort to cover food needs? Some people may initially predict that by reducing reliance on the grocery store, where food can be sourced from around the world any time of the year, that diet diversity will plummet. Early experience suggests otherwise. What we can grow is much more diverse than what can be marketed by commercial farms with all the constraints that entails.

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We are iteratively answering the question of how much of which crops and which varieties to grow to satisfy the members. In the first iteration, the most experienced members developed a crop plan (we use Heirloom.ag for managing this). Then seasonally we perform surveys (using Google Forms) asking if people felt satisfied, wanting, or if they even liked to eat each crop (extra has gone to a food bank, and we are learning to adjust downward on plantings). After a few years of this we expect to be able to give others solid advice on how to begin. 

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Dietary quality of Club members will be evaluated four times throughout the year using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), widely used to measure overall diet quality, with data from food frequency questionnaires and 24-hour recalls. We will compare Club member HEI scores to published average American HEI scores. We will evaluate how Club members compare to typical Americans and if the HEI varies significantly depending on the seasonality of Club food. We will also evaluate members’ perceptions of the Club’s influence on their health and wellness, using a rating scale survey to further interpret the influence on wellness.

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Farmers in the US receive less than 8 cents on every dollar spent on food, with the rest going to the energy, material, and ultimately monetary costs in food dollar categories such as processing, transportation, packaging, wholesale, retail, food services, and advertising. By cutting out most of those costs, the amount of labor it takes to feed yourself as part of a Club (where you become a farmer) could be less than that needed to buy from the global food system (where you work for wages). Intriguingly, a paper by Alik Pelman, a full-time university professor, describes how he grows his own complete diet by laboring on average 8.1 hours a month. This time commitment represents less than the US median of 400 hours of annual wages for 2.5 people per household needed for food purchases, supporting a hypothesis that directly procuring one’s food can be less labor-intensive than working to buy supermarket food, especially for low-income households. 

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Our second line of research examines a simple economic measure of being in the Club. We propose tracking data on per-person labor (by recording work parties attended) and weight of food taken home. The Club mostly grows produce but in 2025 also grew dent corn and quinoa. We would track food in broad categories like “vegetables and fruits,” “grains, “dry beans,” etc. to compare to market costs for similar items. We can then estimate how much someone would have paid for what they got from the Club and compare that to how much time they spent on Club activities. For example if someone spends 90 hours a year farming and takes home 380 lbs of produce with an average value of $3.50 per lb., that’s $1330 for produce. Do this for all categories, sum them, and divide by 90 hours to get a total hourly return on labor.  

 

Confluence Farming Club is evolving unique characteristics based on the farm and people involved. With our experience, we plan to envision a range of possibilities and lay out some of the tradeoffs of each. We can imagine different Club structures and resources. For example, if operating with as little money as possible is the goal, the Club can remain very informal and rely on whatever tools are at hand and a friendly farmer willing to till a plot of land. At the other end of the cost and complexity spectrum, a membership-based non-profit (IRS 501c7) could buy land and equipment and pay professional staff to manage and train members, akin to a contemporary private athletic club.

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Confluence Farming Club is currently between these extremes, with a privately held farm essentially treating the Club members as tenants, and Club members having access to legacy equipment and tools. Expertise and training is all done on a volunteer basis by skilled Club members. In addition to growing much of our own food, the Club is also acting as a buying group, getting a wholesale price for lamb grown at Confluence Farms for example. We are also doing some processing as a group, such as having a communal corn sheller. 

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Our third line of research will be about developing three scenarios related to cost and complexity for Farming Clubs. We will use the cost of land and overhead expenses of Confluence Farms, the cost of farming for the Club, and the market value of internal Club expertise being donated, as a model for understanding how others may navigate their options. For example, Club member Erik is a professional bookkeeper but does his Club work at no charge. Jason is an experienced organic farmer but doesn’t charge for crop planning and operations management. Professionals supporting the Club can track or estimate their time to give us data for scenario development.