Have you heard of CSA, Community Supported Agriculture? CSA is a way to get fresh produce straight from the farmer. Here’s how it works:
- You find a farmer who is offering CSA and has an open spot for the coming season.
- You sign up to support and work with the farmer – basically you are paying for a share of his/her farming for the season.
- Every week during the season you get a bag of fresh, locally grown, produce straight from the farmer (the amount varies).
- Your family eats and enjoys the produce.
There are several reasons you’d want to find and sign onto a Community Supported Agriculture scheme:
- You know where the food is coming from. You can ask the farmer questions and usually you can arrange to visit the farm.
- The food is local and fresh – it’s most often picked the day you get it. Fresher food has better vitamin content.
- CSA farmers most often use organic and/or sustainable agricultural practices. Of course sustainable is a relative term.
- Your kids learn about what grows well locally and, if you choose to visit, they learn about how farms work.
- You might get to try new foods. You realize what it’s like to eat foods in season.
Disadvantages of Community Supported Agriculture:
- Sometimes you have to drive a fair distance to pick up your produce. This varies.
- You have to pay upfront. Sometimes you pay for the whole season, sometimes there is a down payment and a monthly fee, other times there are multiple payments during the season.
- You are sharing the farmer’s risk. Farmers work REALLY hard to bring you good produce, but if they have a crop failure you might get less for your money.
- You can’t always choose what you get in your bag of produce. There might be items you are not used to eating. Farmers do want you to be happy with their plan though so, in my experience, they do what they can to make sure you get a good experience for your family.
Had you heard of CSA? Have you ever signed up with a CSA scheme? What was your experience? Are you signed up for the coming season? Here’s a little easy, fun, homework for you: Follow the first link below to the Local Harvest site. Come back and let everyone know what you found. I’ll be first 
Here are some useful, relevant links:
- Find your closest CSA providers at the Local Harvest site – Community Supported Agriculture.
- Read what the USDA has to say about Community Supported Agriculture – Alternative Farming Systems.
- Find Community Supported Agriculture and other ways to get fresh, local produce, meat, and more in the Kansas City area at the Kansas City Food Circle website – KCFoodCircle.org.
Brought to you by Usborne Books & More, Kansas City and beyond UsborneKC.com – with a variety of both red and green tractor books for kids.
This article appeared in Carnival of the Green #170 at The Natural Patriot.
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With a search on my zip code 16 listings for CSA come up. For many of the listed CSA schemes you pick up at the farm. There are a couple of 5 star rated schemes. The majority provide produce. Several provide herbs and a couple also provide fruit. Two mentioned that they give recipes and one site has sign-up right on the Local Harvest site. One CSA scheme is for meat.
What’s available local to you?
Yay! Thank you for posting about CSAs, I think they are so important. When you sign up with a CSA you are supporting local farmers, and you know exactly where your food is coming from. My good friends in CA happen to be organic farmers (check them out: Terra Bella Family Farm http://www.localharvest.org/csa/M16370 ), and they, like so many other organic farmers, are really, *really* nice people – it becomes more than just picking up your veggies; it's a social event & you can get lots of great tips on cooking, gardening, etc. while you're picking up your food for the week.
WOW!
I NEVER would have thought that we’d have something like this up in our area. We have one and it’s within 14 miles of my house! Super cool Alison–once again you’ve kicked my butt into community action!
Sarah
Laura – I agree, the farmers I’ve met have all been really, really nice. People who work hard and try to do the right thing.
Sarah – I’m so glad you followed the link and found a farmer near you. I was wondering how widespread CSA is – apparently pretty widespread! I look forward to hearing later about your experiences.
That was a nice idea that you have given about how to get fresh produce directly from the farmer. And moreover even the farmer will benefit from this idea of CSA. I am planning to implement your suggestion. Thanks for posting.
There is one in Beattyville, which is about an hour away. Unfortunately it’s not on the way anywhere, so we couldn’t combine the trips. I’ll look into it though. We have friends in Waynesboro, Virginia who did this last year and are planning to do it again this year.
Janet, I’m sorry there isn’t someone closer to you. What you need is a group of interested neighbors so that you can take turns doing the pickups
I wasn’t planning to do CSA this year, but now I’ve been writing about it, and today I got a nice note in the mail from a lady farmer we did CSA with a few years back… I’m very tempted.
The reason I stopped doing CSA was that I decided to grow more of our own produce. It’s been working, but I still need to buy stuff and I guess I’d rather do that from a local farmer than from the store.
I’ve used two different schemes before. I’m going to think about whether we want to back and work with either of them. I’ll bring it up as a dinner discussion topic for the family and see where it takes us.