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CSA: Your Town

by Michelle Andrade (Friday, March 7, 2008)

CSA: Your Town

Springtime is the right time to learn more about the movement known as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In this piece, Cool Mom Michelle Andrade describes how you can support local farmers and enjoy tasty fruits and vegetables at the same time.

First things first:

What is CSA?

CSA is an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. CSAs offer "the food buying public" (that's us) an opportunity to build relationships with local farms that offer programs where we can purchase their (usually organic) produce. This differs from most store-bought produce in that the fruits and veggies you find at the supermarket are picked green and ripen in route to the store.

Most CSAs require a financial commitment up-front to secure your "share." It is a subscription, and commitment, to the farm with which you choose to work. Some farms also require their "shareholders" or "subscribers" to help out some on the farm, as well.

One benefit of committing to a CSA program is that you get to know where your food came from. You get to know the families who grow and harvest your food each week. You may even have the opportunity to learn more about farming.

Best of all, when we purchase goods from locally run businesses, we are directly impacting growth in our own community.

When we buy local, we are reducing the amount of carbon emissions needed to transport the food.

Most CSA seasons last from late spring into the early fall, but some also have extended shares that go on into the winter. In the past 18 years, the estimated number of CSAs in the U.S. have grown from a mere 50 to more than 1,000.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be discussing in more detail the benefits of CSAs and how to pick the one that is right for you. To continue this discussion, visit CoolMomsCare, which is helping to save the world, one kid at a time.

About the Author:

Michelle Andrade
Michelle Andrade is a full-time mom and writer with a background in marketing, who dreams of changing the world one kid at a time.

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Comments

morgan commented, on March 13, 2008 at 9:02 a.m.:

The other amazing thing about the CSA is you have the opportunity to learn more about the best kinds of food to grow in your area. Our CSA has given us beautiful heirloom varieties of garlic, tomatoes, kale, beets, and others. It's a bit of a change in the way I think about food - we get our CSA share on Saturdays, and then usually spend some time online figuring out how to cook some of them! Lots and lots of fun, though. And Farmer Ben is great.

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