CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture”
The General Idea of a CSA program is to grow community awareness of what it takes to grow fresh, real, flavorful produce, and, for the community of shareholders to support a farmer of their choice. Here is how it works. Members subscribe to a share from the farm of their choosing and pay for a share of vegetables for the season to help defray spring start up costs (farmers hate those costs!) and the farmer does their best to provide an array of produce on a regular basis for the members or “share holders”. On a normal year members can look forwards to a nice variety of fresh tasty vegetables, however if the weather doesn’t cooperate the members are effected as there may not be as much to go around, and on an excellent year members are often flooded with the bounty. The idea is that that the community supports the farm and the farm supplies them with the handsome reward of all that fresh, tasty goodness! CSA’s are a great way to get to know where your food is coming from and it’s also a great way to get back into that good old community atmosphere! Many farms that have a CSA welcome visitors and sometimes visitors even like to help out on the farm whether it be helping weed (such as those looonng rows of carrots), to plant that late crop of lettuce or help prune the tomatoes. Farms are very very busy places, but farmers often love to share what they are doing with people, sometimes if you contact the farm they can even set you up for a tour so you can see how stuff works on the farm!
The idea in a nutshell is that the members support a local farm and get fresh produce, and in support of their chosen farm they pay early for their share of produce so that the farm has the start-up funds available to get off the ground in the spring.
If you are looking for a taste of something fresh you can Apply to be a shareholder or you can drop by one of our farmer’s markets and pick up a treat!