By Admin, BuyLocalBG.com, BuyLocalBg@gmail.com/
Thursday, March 5th, 2015 9:00 AM CST
If you’ve been to a farmers market in the past few years you have no doubt run into the term CSA. Perhaps you heard it from people walking around with baskets full of veggies. Maybe you’ve been told by a farmer that something was pre-sold, or not for sale––that it belonged to the CSA members. But what in the world is a CSA?
For the uninitiated, CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture” which, I realize, tells you approximately nothing about what a CSA actually is. A more appropriate definition might be to say that a CSA is a subscription to a farm. Like a magazine subscription, you pay for your food upfront and receive it over the course of several weeks. For our farm, Rough Draft Farmstead, we offered a twelve week CSA this past year beginning in late August. Then, every week for twelve weeks we brought our harvest to the Community Famers Market in Bowling Green and distributed it evenly to our members.
Every farm runs their CSA differently, however, and as someone interested in joining a CSA, it’s good to shop around and decide for yourself what sort of CSA suits you best. For example, at our CSA drop-off we allow the customer––or “shareholder” as they’re sometimes referred––to choose each and every item themselves. We bring all of our food in baskets and give the customer an amount of each item that he or she may take––so many pounds of tomatoes, so many squash, so many cucumbers, etc.. Some CSA’s pre-pack the baskets for the customer and others choose the vegetables for the shareholder when he or she arrives. In addition to their veggies, our friends over at Need More Acres CSA out of Bowling Green offer meat, dairy and cheese as add ons, while there are likewise CSA’s that only offer meat, dairy or cheese––no veggies. We are lucky in our area to have several different styles of CSA available for you to choose what suits you best. Some like to pick their own veggies, and others prefer to have the farmer do it for them. Whatever your preference, a CSA exists for you!
What the CSA model offers for the customer is a chance to get to know, and build a relationship with, the people who grow his or her food, while giving the customer a diversity of fruits and vegetables. It often saves the shareholder money in the long run, educates them on new and interesting produce, and allows them first pick of the best vegetables the farmer has to offer.
For the farmer, the CSA provides security. It allows the farmer to plant and plan according to how many members he or she is taking on, and to not have to depend on often fickle market sales to financially survive a season (which can be devastating in bad years). And that is where the “Community Supported” part of the acronym comes into play. By joining a CSA, you are helping to keep small, family farms like our own in business.
CSA’s are expanding beyond just farm products. Join us for a CSA Fair on February 21st with information at booths, cooking demonstrations and giveaways. Here are some CSA’s available at Community Farmers Market that you may be interested in:
Farms
- Sunny Point Gardens
- Rough Draft Farmstead
- Think Little CSA
- Need More Acres CSA Farm
Bread
- Esters Farm Baked Goods
Prepared Food
- Farm Fresh But Already Fixed
- Zest- Juice for life.
- Summer Garden Memories
- Meltdown {simply delectable iced cream}
- Hillbilly Grillers
Art/Craft
- Sly Dyes
Email Ordering/Herd Shares
- Stoney Creek Farms
Dog Treats
- Bark Twain Bakery
Want to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) including traditional options, market style, pre-orders, weekly deliveries, prepared food, multi-farm, arts & crafts and other ways to make a commitment to local growers and makers at Community Farmers Market?
Join us at the Community Farmers Market Bowling Green on Saturday March 21st for a unique opportunity to learn more about ways that our farmers and artists can make a commitment to you during the coming year. Cooking Demos-Special Offers-Information-Givewaw
