Support Local Agriculture

Sure, you go to Farmer's Markets in season.  You even go to local farm stands on a regular basis and pick up whatever you can.  It's freshly picked, in season, and you have eliminated the middle man.

image: A Produce Bundle from Local Homestead

But, did you know there's an even better way to support your local farmers?

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a not so new trend where people take the risk with the farmer and buy a share of produce for the growing season.  You put your money down up front, and this gives the farmer the necessary influx of cash to get started growing for the season without having to take out a bank loan to buy seeds and get the growing season started.  This small influx of cash at the beginning of the growing season makes a HUGE difference to the small local farmer.

As a result of your cash investment at the beginning of the season, you get to reap the results throughout the growing season.  Once a week, you get to pick up a box full of fresh produce.  (Your share of the crop.)  The sizes of the boxes vary by farmer, and the contents vary by season and the growing conditions in the field.  You are sharing the risk with the farmer, and reaping the rewards along with the farmer.

We've been members of various CSA's throughout Central Maryland for close to 20 years now.  We've always been a member of a CSA that only requires our cash.  There are other CSA's out there that require an outlay of cash AND your physical labor.  I could never guarantee that we could put in that much labor over the course of the season, so we've always paid a little bit more to just go and pick up our box of produce.

So what have we gained?  We've made great friends with the farmers.  They are lovely people who live and work in our community.  Some of them only run CSA's for a year or two before they move onto a different business model, and others have been in the CSA business for years. Spaces are always limited in CSA programs, and if you don't get your deposit in fast enough, you find yourself scurrying around to find a new CSA before all the slots close!  We have been slow with our deposits in the past, and found ourselves shopping around for new CSA's more often than I would like to admit... but we've always enjoyed our fresh produce, and we've always enjoyed getting to know the farmers that we are supporting.  We greet our old friends when we hit up the Farmer's Markets over the summer!  They know that I enjoy canning, and they'll let me know when something is about to come in big so that I can place an order for a case of something (peaches, tomatoes, apples) for the following week.

Now is the time to join a CSA program for this year!  If you're searching for one in your area, follow the links below and search by your zip code for a program close to you!  The first one is a link to the USDA's website.  The second is a link to Local Harvest.  Enjoy!

https://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/community-supported-agriculture

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/