Community Supported Agriculture: The Pervasive Value of CSA Programs
My CSA share from Dilmun Hill Student Farm at Cornell University.
In many of our past posts we mention subscribing to a local CSA as a great option to support sustainable agriculture if you have the means to do so. CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture” and is usually a subscription service to products from a farm or collection of farms. The standard CSA is a “box” of vegetables for pick-up every week or every couple of weeks that is paid for in advance before the season starts. They can typically vary anywhere from $250-$600 depending on where you are and the amount of produce you are receiving. Within the realm of CSAs there are a wide variety of programs, from pick-up to home-delivery, from produce to cheese and meat, from weekly to monthly. With all of these factors, there truly is a CSA model to fit every consumers' needs and every farm’s capacity.
The 1980’s saw a rise in the support of local agriculture globally, as a response to the growing industrial food system that we see today. The Rodale Institute has written a very thorough piece about the initial rise of CSA programs in the US and how they came to be (you can read it all here). The first CSA was founded by a Black farmer by the name of Booker T. Whatley who worked closely at Tuskeegee University with agronomist Dr. George Washington Carver who is famous for his work with peanuts as well as a variety of other crops in the south. Their contributions to agriculture are immense but have gone under celebrated for a long time.
The original version of this article did not include their contributions, but was updated on 7/31/2021. Please reach out to us at GroundedGrub@gmail.com if there is ever anything that we miss like this!
While the exact details of how CSAs expanded in the Northeast are unknown, we do know that there were similar programs (also with a local focus) around the globe in places like Japan and Europe in development around the same time. While they each had a different local focus, all of these burgeoning local food movements developed in response to food-system-frustration and an eagerness to return to local food that worked to heal the environment and fuel communities.
Due to COVID-19, many farms have seen explosive growth in CSA subscriptions. In times like these when going to the grocery store is a potential health risk and people are cooking at home more than ever before, it makes sense that direct farm purchasing is appealing. Folks are recognizing that our massive food system has some limitations: long chains means many hands are involved and thus many opportunities for exposure, as well as potential delays when the system is under stress. Buying local from a farmer means you’re taking out the middleman, meaning less hands touch your food and there’s less risk of long shipping times. But the benefits don’t stop at convenience and safety. We’ve been advocating for CSA programs as part of supporting a sustainable food system for quite a while, so what about the CSA model makes it such a good choice for farmers and consumers?
CSA programs are a great way to support farmers and get a steady stream of delicious food throughout the year. What makes a CSA program even better than shopping at the farmers market is that by subscribing to a box early in the season, you reduce the amount of risk and debt farmers take on during the growing season. Seeds, land, water and inputs like fertilizer and compost are expensive, with most farmers taking on thousands—and often millions—of dollars of debt each year. By giving them money in advance, CSA subscribers allow these farmers to take on less debt and guarantee a market for their products. The subscription model also mitigates risks for each crop. Normally farmers grow more than enough volume of crops in general to make enough money, but if a popular product like tomatoes is hit by disease or bad weather, it can mess up their overall economic viability—even if they have bountiful green beans that same year. By subscribing to buy whatever is flourishing each year, you’re allowing the farmer to grow whatever is best in your local environment! This financial support helps farmers use less inputs, and support their workers during times when the agricultural system is strained.
If you can afford to invest in a CSA program at the beginning of the year, it can also save you money on really high quality groceries. Since you’re mitigating risk, farmers usually are able to offer their products at a discount to their CSA members. Some CSA programs allow you to choose what you want each week, which is an awesome perk toward personalizing your produce. If you’re feeling more adventurous, many CSAs give you as much produce as they are able, with the caveat that you’ll be getting whatever they are growing that’s in season. This is great for the farmers because they aren’t stuck with leftovers of anything, and great for you because you get to expand the diversity of your dinner plate and cooking repertoire!
While supermarket shelves are intermittently bare, there is plenty of food to feed everyone during these times—the food system produces more than enough food to feed everyone—but some things may require more patience. Like grocery stores, farmers were not planning on a “global pandemic” to completely change consumer patterns. Right now there is increased risk to farmworkers, and while challenges will continue to reveal themselves, we have faith in the resilience of our food system and the communities that produce food around the world. We ask during this time that you are patient with the food system and continue to support local business and organizations. If you’re newly subscribed to a CSA or are looking at local food due to their benefits during COVID-19, we ask you to consider continuing when all of this is over. Local food has always been beneficial for community resilience and sustainable production, so don’t let overwhelming support during this crisis just be a “blip.”
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