What is a CSA?

This is the third in a series of posts about buying and eating local food.

So what is a CSA? Community Supported Agriculture. This is a super great way of supporting your local farmer and getting the freshest produce. In traditional agriculture, farmers take all the risk. They buy their seed, plant it, and basically hope for the best when it comes to harvest time. At a CSA, consumers share the risk and pledge to support the producer regardless of the outcome of that season's results. Last season (2009) was a horrible year for tomatoes here on the east coast, remember? Farmers and home gardeners alike were losing their plants left and right to tomato blight. The CSA we’re members of was no different. In our shares of fruits and veggies, we didn't get many tomatoes. We still had plenty of our other produce, so we got our money's worth, but had to go without tomatoes that year. This type of relationship between farmer and consumer produces a strong sense of solidarity.

CSAs are usually organic and sometimes provide other products besides fruits and veggies, like eggs, flowers, honey, dairy, and meat. Pick-ups are usually once per week and most places you can buy a full or half share. Seasons usually range from 4 to 6 months. Prices vary widely depending on whether or not your CSA is organic, how much produce you get per share, how long the season is and what part of the country you live in.

Growing your own food is the best form of eating local, but not everybody has the time, energy, space, etc. to have a vegetable garden. A CSA is the next best thing.

Here is a great website for finding a local CSA near you: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/