What is a CSA?
CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a cooperative effort between
farmers and communities that want fresh, healthy produce. CSA members purchase "shares" of a
farm's harvest at the beginning of a growing season; when crops are ready, the
farmer brings them to a central location where members pick them up.
The CSA concept was developed 30 years ago and introduced in the United
States in 1985. There are now 1,000 CSA groups in North America that serve
over 100,000 families.
Advantages of CSA Membership
Quality
- Freshness: Our food does not spend several days in transit.
- Variety: We get vegetables that are too fragile to harvest or ship by regular means. These include heirlooms and specialty varieties.
Nutritional benefits
- We get to eat local, in-season food - the freshest, healthiest food available.
Communication
- We know our farmers.
- We learn how our food is grown and how to cook and store our vegetables through newsletters, weekly notes, recipes, meetings, and farm visits.
Environmental impact
- We help keep small organic farms in operation.
- We use less packaging and less fuel to get our food.
- Our produce is grown organically; we avoid adding pesticides and other chemicals to the air and to the watershed.
Community contact
- We meet members at the pick-up site, at farm vistis, at pot luck dinners.
Educational benefits
- We have close contact with nature and with our food source.
- We learn the pleasure of eating seasonally, anticipating and enjoying nature's rhythm.
- We can, if we choose, help out at the farm.
