What is a CSA
A CSA is a membership to a local farm that will bring the freshest and best produce to you every week for the season. You will get what is in season when it is at its peak flavor. You will also be supporting your local communtiy and economy. You can expect to recieve a news letter on what produce is in, your weekly produce share and what to expect for the next delivery. From Strawberries to Sweet corn to Pie Pumpkins and everthing in between, you will be getting the most flavor and nutrition you can get out of your food. You will love it! Taste what farmers taste.
What if, instead of getting a news magazine every week, you got a big box of produce from a farmer down the road, a box of fruits and vegetables picked that very morning, bursting with flavor and nutrition? That's what you get when you subscribe to a CSA.
Community-Supported or Community-Shared Agriculture (CSA) is also known as "subscription farming." You buy a subscription from a local farmer just like you buy a subscription to Time or Newsweek. But instead of receiving a magazine each week, you receive a "share" of fresh, locally grown or raised fruit and/or vegetables.
While new in name, Community Supported Agriculture hearkens back to an earlier time-a time when people knew where their food came from, ate in harmony with the seasons, and enjoyed a delicious, healthy diet of pure, fresh foods.
"In season" is what CSAs are all about. The grocery store knows no seasons. It is disconnected from Nature and so are the people who must shop there. Sure, you can buy tomatoes in January-but who wants to eat cardboard tomatoes? That sorry tomato was picked green 2000 miles away and weeks ago, then blasted with ethylene gas to make it turn red just before it landed in the produce section of your store. What we have gained in convenience, we have lost in flavor, freshness, nutritional value, and human connection-to each other and to the land.
When you subscribe to a CSA, however, you remake all those connections.
Of course, you'll never get tomatoes in May. In May, your vegetable CSA share will be full of luscious lettuce, spinach, and other spring delights. When August comes, then you will experience an explosion of true tomato flavor with your first bite of a juicy, just-picked, sun-ripened tomato- proving once again that some things are worth waiting for!
CSA subscribers don't so much "buy" food from particular farms as become "members" of those farms. CSAs provide more than just food, they offer ways for eaters to become involved in the ecological and human community that supports the farm. Give us a try a see for yourself!
