b'Two dozen of us were sitting down for lunch beneath flowering apple trees at the Schumacher Center, not far from where the nations first CSA 6was organized in 1986, at Indian Line Farm, in South Egremont, Massachusetts.Can I disagree with you? Eliot Coleman called out from the other end of the long table. You said youre 99% pessimistic and 1% optimistic, but that you wake up every morning in the 1%, so theres plenty to do that day. I love that, but I still need to disagree with you. Im 100% optimistic. My curiosity was more than a little piqued, as I know Eliot to be the most pragmatic and learned of souls. Over the past 40 years, Ive turned a few acres of rocky pine forest in Maine into an extremely productive farm. If I can do that, anything is possible.Eliot is one in a million in terms of his particular blend of pioneering spirit, farming talent, entrepreneurial acumen and unflappable cele-bration of lifelong learning. He is also emblematic of a whole new generation of small organic farmers, for whom he is showing the way and on whose success so much depends.6 CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Each member of a CSA pays for a share of that farms produce in advance of the farming season, and then collects their share of whatever the farm produces weekly as the season progresses. Today, there are some 7,000 CSAs in the U.S.15'