About three years ago or so I was introduced to the concept of community supported agriculture.* [1] My husband and I found out about a CSA in our neighborhood (Hellgate CSA [2], formally known as Ravenswood CSA), and decided to join mid-season. It was probably one of the best and most influential decisions we have ever made, and I owe them a tremendous amount of gratitude. My appreciation for locally grown food by small family farms is much greater, and it has inspired us to try to grow our own food as well as visit the farmers market more often.
This morning as I was surfing on CNN's website and watching videos I saw an image of a woman that looked familiar to me. I watched the video [3] and soon realized that she was someone I had met a few months ago at a Just Food conference (Just Food [4] is a New York City based non-profit focused on improving inner-city access to locally grown food). Lauren Melodia is part of the core volunteer leadership of Bed-Stuy CSA [5] (Brooklyn-based), and works very hard with farmer Hector Tejada of Conuco Farm [6] to bring good quality vegetables to the Bedford-Stuyvesant community.
I am always pleased when I see community supported agriculture featured in the news. While I do not always purchase local or organic fruits and vegetables for convenience reasons, I am a firm believer in supporting small family farms. It is saddening to me that it is easier and "cheaper" to purchase food grown thousands of miles away, when we have such great farms in our own part of the world.
There is a problem, however - Just Food and CSAs, like Lauren's and ours, are making the concept of community supported agriculture so popular in New York that there is now a problem with supply and demand. The demand is so great now for local food, that farmers are now having a hard time keeping up. I hope that this means that more people will take the plunge and become farmers themselves. I can tell you that I am most tempted myself!
I try to read books written about or by local farmers and there are a few that I would recommend:
- Harvest: A Year in the Life of an Organic Farm [7] by Nicola Smith (centered around Fat Rooster Farm)
- It's a Long Road to a Tomato [8] by Keith Stewart of Keith's Farm (who can often be seen at the Union Square Greenmarket)
- The Omnivore's Dilemma [9] by Michael Pollan (featuring Polyface Farm)
*What is Community Supported Agriculture?
Here is an explanation from Wikipedia [10]:
CSA generally is the practice of focusing on the production of high quality foods using ecological, organic or biodynamic farming methods. This kind of farming operates with a much greater-than-usual degree of involvement of consumers and other stakeholders—resulting in a stronger than usual consumer-producer relationship. The core design includes developing a cohesive consumer group that is willing to fund a whole season’s budget in order to get quality foods. The system has many variations on how the farm budget is supported by the consumers and how the producers then deliver the foods. By CSA theory, the more a farm embraces whole-farm, whole-budget support, the more it can focus on quality and reduce the risk of food waste or financial loss.
Not very specific but it basically means that you join a CSA (similar to a co-op), pay a certain amount at the beginning of a season for the food and administration costs (usually cost of supplies, but not of staff - a CSA is typically volunteer-run) and every week pick up your veggies/fruits/etc. (usually picked fresh that day or the day before) at a pre-specified location. Many CSAs and farms provide their members with ideas on how to store and prepare the food, and many also encourage composting leftover food - that way nothing gets wasted.