What's a CSA?

Thursday, March 4, 2010:

I'm sure everyone has heard the acronym CSA countless times, but I have a sneaking suspicion that more than one person out there isn't exactly sure what it means. So, what is a CSA, anyway? It's not a stupid question!

CSA stands for "community supported agriculture." The idea is that individuals invest in local farms by buying shares of the farm. In return for their financial investment, CSA members receive regular installments of the farm's products. That, in a nutshell, is the CSA concept.

When CSAs were first devised, they were quite a bit different than they are now. In those days, a group of people got together, pooled their money, bought a farm, and hired a farmer to grow them food. They then took shares of what the farm produced for the year. Although they all hoped the farm would have have a bountiful year and that their financial investments would yield an abundance of fantastic produce, they accepted that things could happen that would affect the farm's production. For example, the farmer might have to fight against unfavorable weather the entire season and be unable to produce tomatoes, peppers, and melons during the summer. If that happened, folks would make do and accept whatever was able to grow despite the bad weather.

Nowadays, most CSAs are designed to limit the risk that the members take when buying shares of the farm. Some farms reserve the right to supplement what they grow with produce from other farms in order to guarantee that CSA members are always satisfied. Also, a lot of farms don't require members to commit to the whole season and accept payment for tangible quantities of food, as opposed to requiring them to make a more ideological commitment to the farm. Most CSAs are unique and have their own particular structures - every CSA I have researched is a little bit different. In my opinion, this ability to adapt the CSA model to fit the individual farm is what makes CSAs so great.

Jeff and I decided to start a CSA because we want to make our food as accessible to people as possible. Some people can't make it to the farmer's market or the roadside stand, but know that they want to guarantee their supply of fresh, locally grown fruits and veggies. For them, the CSA is the perfect option. We designed our CSA in such a way that members pay a certain amount up front, which helps us fund the annual start-up costs of the farm (seeds, compost, tools, drip-tape, etc). Once we are able to start actually packing CSA boxes, our members will then pay for their share of the farm's produce monthly. Not only does the CSA provide us with another outlet through which we can feed people in our community, but it also gives us confidence that there are people all ready to eat everything that we grow, which allows us to grow larger quantities of a more diverse selection of produce. We don't need to worry about selling every tomato at the farmer's market, because we have a group of people who have already committed to eating tomatoes (and whatever else we are growing at the time) each week.

I also love the community-building aspect of the CSA. I think it's so exciting to be responsible for growing the fruits and veggies that are going to be eaten every week by people in my town. Our CSA members believe in us and, in return, will be treated like royalty. They will get first dibs on the best heirloom tomatoes, juicy, sweet peppers, and crunchy, satisfying cucumbers. Our CSA kids will always be welcome to come see the goats or chickens, because we really do think of ourselves as being their farm.

If you want to know more about our CSA, go to our website at www.redwoodempirefarm.com/csa.html. For more on CSAs in general, check out www.localharvest.org, which is a great site that includes a comprehensive database of CSAs around the country.