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CSA (community supported agriculture) Membership Information
E-mail
with your postal address and we will send you an application for our
CSA.
General CSA concepts (not all apply to our farm's CSA)
The community supported agriculture began in the early 1960s in Germany,
Switzerland, and Japan as a response to concerns about food safety and the
urbanization of agricultural land. Groups of consumers and farmers in Europe
formed cooperative partnerships to fund farming and pay the full costs of
ecologically sound, socially equitable agriculture. In Europe many of the
CSA style farms were inspired by the economic ideas of
Rudolf Steiner and experiments with community agriculture took place on
farms using
biodynamic agriculture. In 1965, mothers in Japan concerned about the
rise of imported food and the loss of arable land started the first CSA
projects, called teikei in Japanese - most likely unrelated to the
developments in Europe.
The idea took root in the United States in 1984, when Jan Vander Tuin
brought the concept of CSA to North America from Europe. Vander Tuin had
co-founded a community-supported agricultural project named Topinambur,
located near Zurich, Switzerland. Coinage of the term, community-supported
agriculture, stems from Vander Tuin and the Great Barrington CSA that he
co-founded with
Robyn Van En, its proprietor. Since that time, community supported farms
have been organized throughout North America, mainly in the Northeast, the
Pacific coast, the Upper-Midwest, and
Canada.
North America now has at least 1,300 CSA farms, with estimates ranging
as high as 3,000. One of the largest CSA's in the US is
Angelic Organics.
CSA generally is the practice of focusing on the production of high
quality foods for a local community, often using
organic or
biodynamic farming methods, and a shared risk membership/marketing
structure. This kind of farming operates with a much greater-than-usual
degree of involvement of consumers and other stakeholders — resulting in a
stronger than usual consumer-producer relationship. The core design includes
developing a cohesive consumer group that is willing to fund a whole
season’s budget in order to get quality foods. The system has many
variations on how the farm budget is supported by the consumers and how the
producers then deliver the foods. By CSA theory, the more a farm embraces
whole-farm, whole-budget support, the more it can focus on quality and
reduce the risk of food waste or financial loss.
Structure
In its most formal and structured
European
and
North American forms, CSAs focus on having:
- a transparent, whole season budget for producing a specified wide
array of products for a set number of weeks a year;
- a common-pricing system where producers and consumers discuss and
democratically agree to pricing based on the acceptance of the budget; and
- a ‘shared risk and reward’ agreement, i.e. that the consumers
eat what the farmers grow even with the vagaries of seasonal growing.
Thus, individuals, families or groups do not pay for x pounds or
kilograms of produce, but rather support the budget of the whole farm and
receive weekly what is seasonally ripe. This approach eliminates the
marketing risks and costs for the producer and an enormous amount of time,
often manpower too, and allows producers to focus on quality care of soils,
crops, animals, co-workers — and on serving the customers. There is
financial stability in this system which allows for thorough planning on the
part of the farmer, and emotional investment on the part of the members.
Some farms are dedicated entirely to CSA, while others also sell through
on-farm stands, farmers' markets, and other channels. Most CSAs are owned by
the farmers, while some offer shares in the farm as well as the harvest.
Consumers have organized their own CSA projects, going as far as renting
land and hiring farmers. Many CSAs have a core group of members that assists
with CSA administration. Some require or offer the option of members
providing labor as part of the share price.
Some CSAs have evolved into social enterprises employing a number of
local staff, improving the lot of local farmers and educating the local
community about organic/ecologically responsible farming. Australia's
Food Connect is a unique social enterprise that is now competing with
the major supermarkets.
Typically, CSA farms are small, independent, labor-intensive, family
farms. By providing a guaranteed market through prepaid annual sales,
consumers essentially help finance farming operations. This allows farmers
to not only focus on quality growing, it can also somewhat level the playing
field in a food market that favors usually large-scale, industrialized
agriculture over local food.
Vegetables and fruit are the most common CSA crops. Many CSAs practice
ecological,
organic or
biodynamic agriculture, avoiding
pesticides and inorganic fertilizers. The cost of a share is usually
competitively priced when compared to the same amount of vegetables
conventionally-grown, partly because the cost of distribution is lowered.
Distribution and Marketing Methods
Method of distribution is a distinctive feature in CSA. In the
U.S. and
Canada, shares are usually provided weekly, with pick-ups on a
designated day and time. CSA subscribers often live in towns and cities -
local drop-off locations, convenient to a number of members, are organized,
often at the homes of members. Shares are also usually available on-farm.
CSA is different from buying clubs and home delivery services, where the
consumer buys a specific product at a predetermined price. CSA members
purchase only what the farm is able to successfully grow and harvest, in
essence CSA members share some of the growing risk with the farmer. If the
strawberry crop is not successful, for example, the CSA member will share
the burden of the crop failure by not receiving strawberries for the season
or receiving lower quality strawberries. CSA members are also more actively
involved in the growing and distribution process, through shared newsletters
and recipes, farm visits, farm work-days, advance purchases of shares, and
picking up their shares.
Some families have enrolled in subscription CSAs in which a family pays a
fixed price for each delivery, and can start or stop the service as they
wish. This kind of arrangement is also referred to as crop-sharing or box
schemes. In such cases, the farmer may supplement each box with produce
brought in from neighboring farms for a better variety. Thus there is a
distinction between the farmers selling pre-paid shares in the upcoming
season's harvest or a weekly subscription that represents that week's
harvest. In all cases participants purchase a portion of the farm's harvest
either by the season or by the week in return for what the farm is able to
successfully grow and harvest. The largest subscription CSA, with over 4,000
families, is
Farm Fresh To You established in 1992 in Capay Valley, California.
An advantage of the close consumer-producer relationship is increased
freshness of the produce, because it does not have to be shipped long
distances. The close proximity of the farm to the members also helps the
environment by reducing pollution caused by transporting the produce. CSA's
often include recipes and farm news in each box. Tours of the farm and work
days are announced. Over a period of time, consumers get to know who is
producing their food, and what production methods are used.
Share prices can vary dramatically depending on location. Variables also
include length of share season, and average quantity and selection of food
per share. As a rough average, in North America, a basic share may be
$350-500 for a season, for 18-20 weeks (June to October), with enough of
each included crop for at least two people (perhaps 8-12 common garden
vegetables). Seasonal eating is implied, as shares are usually
based on the outdoor
growing season, which means a smaller selection at the beginning and
perhaps the end of the period, as well as a changing variety as the season
progresses. Some CSA programs offer different share sizes, also, a choice of
share periods (eg. full-season and peak season).
A film,
The Real Dirt on Farmer John, (Netflix) documents the resurrection of a family
farm through its conversion to a CSA model.
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