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Taste The Rainbow

Entries in community supported agriculture (1)

Monday
Jun112012

Community Suppported Agriculture

So this year is the first time I have ever joined a community-supported agriculture (CSA) scheme. For those unfamiliar, CSA's are basically a pay-it-forward way of farmers and consumers coming together in a mutually beneficial arrangement. Members pay for the duration of a season up front (sometimes a few months, sometimes year round; in our case, it runs approximately 20 weeks, and we started early), and in return, they get a weekly collection of fruits, vegetables, and whatever other accoutrements the farm might specialize in (some CSA's offer wool shares from sheep, others feature bread-shares and coffee shares from local bakeries and roasters). This gives the farmer the advantage of having capital up-front that can be used throughout the season for improvements and other projects; it also acts as a form of insurance, in the event of crop loss. Customers get a good end insofar as the rate for CSA's tends to run lower than the price of buying a la carte from the farmers markets, and usually they share in bounty -- if it's a particularly good year, they can obtain more product, and in bad years, sometimes less. That is the trade of the CSA -- customers are paying it forward in the hopes of supporting a farmers work. But farmers cannot control nature, and if Mother Nature chooses not to cooperate, the farmer can get hurt -- even get put out of the game by a single bad season. CSA's work to reduce that harm by giving farmers a certain degree of financial security, and the ability to install improvements that can even prevent or reduce environmental damage to crops. 

This might leave one wondering what this means for customers, as they appear to be getting the raw end of what could be a very short stick. The key to remember is that a CSA is, at its core, an investment in community and in a series of practices. When you shop at a supermarket, your income goes towards reinforcing and paying for a series of agricultural and labor practices, processing and commercial practices you might not actually agree with. Your purchases pay companies whose profit motive, largely, takes income out of your state, your local economy, and puts it back into a series of investments that may support projects you do not agree with (remember our chat last week about multiplier effects). CSA's turn that on its head, the community supporting the farmer and acknowledging that they are investing in him to do what he does best -- ostensibly the very things that the community of consumers themselves want.

Sometimes the community becomes more than just consumers, but actual co-producers; some CSA's have volunteer days and hours, optional and required, as part of the membership. Sometimes value-added activities, like making jam with overstock fruit or participating in barn-raising parties, become part of the involvement. In this case, community supported agriculture becomes about more than just procuring produce or investments, it is actually a community-generating relationship, bringing together people around shared values, convivia, and perhaps even the organizing around shared issues that all parties might not have been aware of before. All this, plus the money kept in the community by placing their money in a nearby farm, all have positive consequences on and for the community, writ-large. 

We paid $390 for ~20 weeks of produce -- about 20/week, give or take, that also includes a weekly dozen eggs, and a weekly batch of fruit (not delivered in the first drop, sadly). One pound of lettuces, some kohlrabi, a half bound of chard, a bunch of radishes, a head of lettuce, a couple heads of garlic & stalks, and a pound of garlic scapes plus eggs came in the first batch. Not a bad sell for the season. I'll be updating periodically with the stories about this adventure, as well as raising questions about it to boot. Later this month, I'll be delivering a paper on CSA's for The Association for the Study of Food and Society conference, detailing some of the demographic points and reasons people participate in them.

If any readers are members of CSA's or curious about them, we'd actually be interested in hearing about it. Drop a line in the comment box if you have been, are in, dropped out of, or are curious about CSA's. We'd look forward to hearing about it (especially cases where you dropped out of one). For those interested in checking one out near their home, check out the Local Harvest website here. It's a bit late to start a season, but it shouldn't stop you from investigating a CSA, or other options for local foods in your community.