Community Supported Agriculture
Alongside farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs can be a great way to acquire fresh local produce without much hassle or label checking. Most CSAs have a subscription-based structure where one commits to buying a box of produce each week over a certain time period from a community farm. Due to this subscription structure, CSAs make it easier for farmers to plant and grow an appropriate amount of each vegetable or fruit, avoiding some of the waste that can occur at farmers’ markets when a farmer miscalculates demand.
My local CSA is called Be Wise Ranch, located in the Santa Fe Valley approximately 20 miles north of San Diego. I’m signed up to receive a small box of vegetables every week, and this week’s box included onions, beans, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, strawberries and zucchini. Since one doesn’t get to pick which vegetables are in the box each week, one is forced to find new and exciting recipes for the vegetables one doesn’t traditionally buy at the grocery store. For example, this zucchini soup recipe has been a big hit with me and my friends. Here’s a photo of some of my recent CSA acquisitions from Be Wise.
To find a CSA near you, check out this helpful tool over at Local Harvest. Many CSAs operate primarily through drop spots scattered throughout the communities that they serve. If there isn’t currently a drop spot near you, contact the farm and offer to set one up and manage it! The Be Wise drop spot that I currently use was started by an enterprising graduate student with an interest in local food (and he even receives a free box every week for his troubles).
July 12th, 2007 at 7:48 am
I’m glad to see you have signed up for a CSA. I recently ran into another Reed graduate, Mickey Murch, who has started a farm in Bolinas. I have since bought a few boxes of produce from him. The last box had a note detailing a program whereby one can special order chickens. This seems like an unusual twist on general CSA practice. Here he is showing how he goes about slaughtering a pig: http://www.vimeo.com/140457
I know I raised this issue with you before, but I would be interested to see your response to The Economist article in which they critique certain “green” practices; one of which being the buy local movement. The link to the original article does not seem to be working but here is someone discussing some of the main arguments in his or her blog: http://bexhuff.com/easy-to-be-green (And just to get ahead of myself a little bit, I would imagine CSAs would be a subset of buying local which would escape some of the problems The Economist raises.)July 12th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I’m hoping to get my friend Mike from Pomona on here to do a point/counterpoint on the Economist article with either me or Lauren. There’s no question that those concerns have to be addressed. In my particular case I can take the bus to the farmers’ market and walk or take the bus to Whole Foods, so hopefully I dodge some of those last mile worries.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Those veggies looks great, I’ll convince Hanie to get on board.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
[...] feel good about some of the things I make an effort to do, like drying clothes on a rack and eating CSA food, and guilty about things I have a hard time stopping, like using hot water and producing garbage. [...]