Getting Great Food: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is an innovative way to get fresh, seasonal food directly from local farms. When you join a CSA, you support your community farmers by purchasing a share of their harvest in advance. Here’s how it works:
- Farmers figure out their costs for a year of planting, tending, watering, harvesting and delivering their crops.
- They divide those costs by the number of farm “shares” they want to sell to families and individuals. A “share” is usually one box (a big one!) of fresh fruits, veggies, herbs, and sometimes flowers, dairy products, honey, eggs, and even meat, delivered every week during the growing season.
- Many farmers offer different sizes of share boxes for larger or smaller families, and some CSA shareholders split the cost of a share with neighbors or friends.
- CSA members pick up their boxes of fresh food at a central location (often your neighborhood food co-op).