Community Supported Agriculture - Anyone Involved?

[MrCoffee]

There are quite a few CSA farms around here, and MrsCoffee and I are looking into joining up. Anyone have any experience with CSAs?

My big hesitation is that we'll end up one month with 50 pounds of turnips or something.

[DinahMoeHum]

1. You might try Local Harvest for more info re CSAs, farmer's markets. etc.

www.localharvest.org


I have friends who are members of CSAs, and they assure me that the "50-lbs of turnips" syndrome will NOT occur.

Good luck, good hunting/gathering, and good eating.

:9

[meganmonkey]

2. I have been both an employee and a member of CSAs

Ask me anything :P

You may end up with a lot of something you don't like, it has been known to happen. But if you have excess of sometihing you like, your CSA folks can probably give you tips on canning and freezing.

Another option is that you can donate it to a local food bank, soup kitchen or whatever. They will generally take donations of fresh, whole produce. (I work for one of those now, so you can ask me anything about that too :) )

[fed-up]

5. I am thinking of doing a very small scale CSA to help my farmer BF

when I move into town.

It would only include his crops which are mostly organic greens & salad mix and melons/squash, with tomatoes, onions, carrots, & cukes etc in season.

It would be half delivered (by me on bike-weather permitting) locally and half pick-up.

What are people willing to pay per week? Was there a minimum price per week/delivery that covered costs/effort involved? Minimum number of people? I was thinking of starting with 10 and hopefully expanding to 40 or more. Minimum price would be about $15 a week which is what most people can afford here. The neighborhood I hope to move to is lower income, "hippy" types and seniors with no grocery stores within a few miles (not counting Canned Foods and their weeks old produce).

I would love to hear from anyone that has used or is using a CSA.

This would not start until spring after I get all moved and settled in town.

We were thinking of having a set order with the possibilty to add on seasonal items a few days before pick-up.

We would do it midweek to balance out his Saturday stint at the local farmers market.

[meganmonkey]

6. Most CSAs have an annual "share" price

rather than a weekly breakdown.

The concept is that the farmers determine their budget before the season even starts, and use that to determine how much each share costs. I have seen these prices range from $250 a year to $600, depending on what the share includes (i.e is it just veggies, or is there also an orchard? a dairy for milk? Eggs? Does the share feed a family of 3? or 6?).

So let's say your costs (including all growing expenses, your labor/salary etc) total $25,000, and you are expecting to sell 100 shares, each share would be $250. Obviously you would be starting out with a smaller amount than that, though.

The benefit to this system is that even if some of your items fail or don't do well, other items will do well. So maybe your shareholders won't get many brussels sprouts this year, but they will get a shitload of tomatoes and peppers... Even if you have a terrible year - there are monsoons for months, or a drought, your shareholders have made their investment regardless, and you are still guaranteed to make enough money to keep going. When someone joins a CSA, they do so with the understanding that nothing is guaranteed. It truly is Community Supported Agriculture.

I would think that you should put together some sort of a business plan and budget soon, and start advertising soon, if you really want to do it CSA style. Another option is doing a mobile market of some kind where people buy items on the spot as you go around the neighborhood. There are several companies like that starting around the coutnry, specifically for getting healthy produce into inner cities where grocery stores are nonexistent (just like where you are talking about).

I hope some of this is helpful, and feel free to ask me more questions. I can only speak from my experiences, but this is something I have been involved in in one way or another for about 10 years.

[fed-up]

7. thanks, I will ask more questions in a month or so, right now I am packing

and either moving into the perfect house for my son and I, or putting 15K books into storage and renting until housing prices come down. My house closes escrow in about 3 weeks so I don't have too much time to invest in this idea yet. It was just a thought I had about a week ago and it may or may not be practical. It would supplement his farmer's market income and help the neighborhood folks. Like I said it would be really low key.

I did bookmark the sites that were posted, so I can get an idea of how things work...

[meganmonkey]

8. Yeah, maybe a mobile market would work better

than a full-on CSA for you...at least for next year.

If you do have questions later feel free to PM me. I will answer as best I can.

Good luck with moving and everything!

Peace.

[sbj405]

11. Here's a model you might be able to use for a weekly service

http://www.washingtonsgreengrocer.com/

Keep in mind it's DC,so the prices will be higher than your community.

[kestrel91316]

3. My sister and BIL in WI are members of a CSA - they LOVE it.

They have belonged for 4 or 5 years. Now with both kids in college they might stop, but if they can get half-shares that could work, too.

[Viking12]

4. We have been involved the last two summers...

It has been a wonderful experience. Great food and our pick-up is at a neighbor's house so it's become a great community builder -- each Wednesday afternoon we get an opportunity to get together and chat w/ other members; that opportunity wouldn't otherwise be available.

Our CSA is committed to providing a variety each week even though the seasons dictate what is available. Certainly we get an excess of some products (this year we got more green beans than you can imagine) but we took the opportunity to freeze and can some products so we can enjoy them all winter long. For a small extra fee we got enough tomatoes to can 40 quarts of tomatoe sauce and paste which makes a great base for soups, sauces, chile, stews, etc...Turnips can be stored for a long time in a dry cellar space ;)

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

9. Here I am, late to the party as usual

anyway, this is our first year doing csa, and our biggest problem is that we're not used to having such an abundance
of fresh produce, so more ends up going bad than I am comfortable with before I've figured out what to do with it.

It is a bit of a gamble, but we've yet to be stuck with an outrageous amount of anything we don't want.
In fact, the way ours works, we can often avoid getting anything we don't want without sacrificing
part of our share.

On our best week at the height of the season we got 14 big tomatoes, 6 or 8 bell peppers, a big bag of
salad mix, and a bunch of other stuff I don't specifically remember (beets, summer squash, etc. probably)

lately the season is winding down and our typical take is a pumpkin or two,
a few assorted winter squash, a few potatoes (sweet and otherwise) and kale.

we worked out that it costs us about $20 per week. We think it's a huge bargain,
especially since everything is organic.

[MrCoffee]

10. A big thank you to everyone who responded!