blog, Gardening

What Is A Community Supported Agriculture System?

Peace!

As people wish to find fresh organic produce, community supported agriculture, or CSAs are being more and more popular with people in urban and rural environments. CSA’s allow people to connect with local farms to buy their harvests. Consumers receive a box of fresh produce from one farm or a group of farms at many times lower than buying from a grocery store.

If you are a homesteader with a large farm, or someone who wants access to fresh and lower cost vegetables directly from a local farm, these are great ways to connect the two groups. I love the concept of the CSA as it fulfills the needs of the people in small decentralized collectives.

Benefits For Farmers/ Homesteaders

For producers, CSA farms, can help create a new revenue stream. You can also contribute to your local community.

This is also great to find markets for more than just vegetable harvests as some CSAs offer meat dairy, and poultry.

If you have a larger farm, you can host events for families and those interested in how your farm works.

Benefits For Consumers

Consumers get access to fresh organic produce at a set price that they can negotiate in some cases. With your participation you are helping your local economy. Keeping money in the community should be important to Black people, and truly all people.

Types of Community Supported Agriculture Systems

There are four types of CSA’s according to Wikipedia:

– Farmer managed: One producer creates and maintains the CSA, They subsequently mange and recruit members.

– Shareholder/subscriber: Consumer residents can set up a CSA, and then hire a producer farmer to grow the crops with control belonging to the residents.

-Farmer/cooperative: Groups of producers/farmers set up a CSA.

-Farmer-shareholder cooperative: Producers and consumers work together to start and run a CSA.

CSA Near Me

Georgia Organics – Specially for those in Georgia. https://georgiaorganics.org/for-eaters/csa/
Local Harvest- https://www.localharvest.org/csa/
Local Food Directories. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service.
Includes directories of farmers markets, on-farm markets, CSAs, and food hubs.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/local-regional/food-directories
Farm Bureau Georgia https://www.gfb.org/index.cms –