So we just joined our local CSA. What's a CSA, you ask? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and here's how the folks at
Local Harvest define it:
Many farms offer produce subscriptions, where buyers receive a weekly or monthly basket of produce, flowers, fruits, eggs, milk, coffee, or any sort of different farm products.
A CSA, (for Community Supported Agriculture) is a way for the food buying public to create a relationship with a farm and to receive a weekly basket of produce. By making a financial commitment to a farm, people become "members" (or "shareholders," or "subscribers") of the CSA.
You can find more on what a CSA is and how they work here.
We were out of the country for most of the season, but we got a pro-rated share that extends from now until October.
Unless you live in Southern Colorado, there is no need for me to tell you about my CSA specifically, but let me see if I can tell you some interesting things I've learned about agriculture in general just by keeping my eyes open and talking to the guy who runs it.
- Our farm (I can call it that now, you know) is not organic certified. It used to be, but when the federal government took over the certification process it became too expensive. It is now certified "natural" through an independent process. Anything they do use in the fields gets posted on a big board at the front of the farm and it's not much. I actually had an Asian green bean picked right off the plant. It was delicious. If it was an industrial farm, I wouldn't even have stood there, let alone eaten the food without washing it.
- The crop variety and rotation there is just extraordinary. Instead of growing one thing, they grow many at the same time. Presently they had melons, tomatoes, basil, squash. green beans and a few other things I didn't see I'm sure. Within a month or two they'll be planting the fall crops that will end up in our box at the end of the season. I'm particularly looking forward to the heirloom tomatoes as I'm sick of seeing every tomato I encounter look exactly the same. Before industrialization, farming must have looked at least somewhat like this.
- I was kind of amazed by the number of weeds there. They don't have enough help to pull all of them, but other than take water it seems that they don't do anything to teh produce anyway. Start spraying for aesthetic reasons and pretty soon a farmer ends up in an endless cycle of kill and kill again. I like to think of weeds as a culturally relative term anyway. One person's weed is another person's delicacy. And besides, here in the irrigated desert that is Pueblo County, weeds are what's supposed to be here. It's the grass that's not natural.
Why should you join a CSA? I figure you can think of it one of two ways. First, it's a political point. You will be voting with your pocket book for a more sustainable form of agriculture and bypassing the organic industrial complex at the same time (not to mention the Wal-Marts and other organic Johnny-come-latelies of the world). Second, you can do it for the food. Besides being delicious, I want my kids to see where food REALLY comes from and now they can do it every weekend when we pick up our box.
JR
PS To find a CSA in your area, go here.