whatisCSA?

Some of the goals of CSA participants:

    To get lots of healthy food that is fresh and clean!

     To have relationships with their farmers and farms;

     To assure farmers, who are too often overworked and underpaid, a fair return on their skills, efforts, and investments,
     and
      to assure consumers a fair price on quality food;

     To preserve open space and wildlife habitat;

     To keep money within ones' community where it's worth more because it's re-cycled;

     To support "the food less traveled," because a local food system is more efficient and able to weather the uncertainties of our energy future.

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CSA:
Community Supported Agriculture

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CSA

Farm Share

   Some farms are purely subscription focused, growing only     for member/shareholders.

    Some farms sell shares as well as attend farmers'
    markets, run farmstands, and maintain wholesale
    accounts.

    Some CSA shares are purely vegetables.

    Some shares include herbs, melons, berries, fruits,
    processed farm foods, meats and non-edible benefits like      newsletters and events (like weeding parties!)

The reasons to join a CSA are as myriad
as the reasons to eat locally grown and produced food.

       The phenomenon of CSA farms has grown in the past two decades, fueled by the "localvore" paradigm and an increasing desire on the part of both consumers and growers to form connections and secure a viable future for farms as community resources.
      Typically, at the beginning of the season
folks commit to a CSA share program by paying for the season's worth of produce.
      Essentially underwriting their farmers, shareholders allow the producers to avoid taking on debt to start the season, to plan better, and to focus more on growing food than securing markets and distributing produce.

It's a commitment:

Farmers commit to providing quality, fresh produce.

Shareholders commit to buying from the farm and to assume some of the risk inherent in any agricultural enterprise.