Community Supported Agriculture
by Katie Milligan
Community-Supported Agriculture projects, or CSAs, are gaining momentum around the country as more and more people reject the health hazards that the chemically-addicted agribusiness industry imposes on us. The genius of CSAs is their simplicity. You sign up with a local farm to receive produce on a weekly basis for a growing season, paying for your ‘share’ of the yield up front or in a series of installments. In return you get fresh, organic vegetables and fruit delivered to your front door (or a nearby drop-off point) every week.
CSAs are, in the words of Donella Meadows, Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College, the solution to the U.S.’s current farming crisis. While over 20,000 small farms go bankrupt in the United States every year, CSA farms have increased from less than 60 in 1990 to over 1,000 today.
CSAs are thriving because they actually allow farmers to make a living. Supermarkets just aren’t doing that—for every dollar you spend at the grocery store, on average only 5-25 cents goes back to the farmer (the rest pays for packaging, transport, marketing, and chemical inputs). Participating in a CSA, on the other hand, is a way to get chemical-free, fresh food directly from the people who grew it—often on the day they picked it. Which means, of course, that unlike the majority of food available in your supermarket, your CSA produce will not have to travel an average of over 2,000 miles to reach your plate.
Early spring is the time to join a CSA for the upcoming growing season, so contact these organizations soon.
You can request a print-out of CSA farms in your region by calling Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Inc. at 800-516-7797, or you can write to them at P.O. Box 29135, San Francisco, CA 94129-0135.
The Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College also serves as a national network for CSA farms. Call them at 717-264-4141 (ext. 3247) or write to them at 1015 Philadellphia Ave., Chambersurg, PA 17201.
The Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) publishes a directory of CSA resources. Reach them by phone at 800-346-9140 or read about CSA organizations, networks and contacts at the Marketing & Business Series page of ATTRA’s Publications at www.attra.org/.
-- by Katie Milligan, Former Research Associate at the Center for a New American Dream