Understanding Community Supported Agriculture

CSAs Benefit All

Two to three heads of lettuce, salad mix, radishes, bok choy, spinach, swiss chard, summer squash or zucchini, basil, sage or parsley, scallions, and broccoli. That is what shareholders at Angelic Organics Farm in Calendonia, Ill., received the week of June 13, 2005 in their boxes. What boxes? The boxes of fresh produce provided to them for being Community Supported Agriculture shareholders. 

Community Supportive Agriculture, or CSA, is a program that allows the general public to buy shares of a season’s crop from some smaller farms. In exchange for the cost of the share, shareholders are given fruits and/or vegetables usually on a weekly basis. Sometimes flowers and herbs are available as well. For the farm, this is guaranteed revenue no matter how the season turns out. The money usually covers operating costs for the farm, including a base salary for the farmer. For the shareholders, this means getting a selection of the freshest produce each week that may include things you normally wouldn’t select. It also is a slight gamble for the shareholder – weather impacts crops so you might not get the boatload of corn you hoped for and instead get a wealth of root vegetables. 

According to an excerpt from Suzanne DeMuth’s 1993 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): An Annotated Bibliography and Resource Guide, “The CSA concept originated in the 1960s in Switzerland and Japan, where consumers interested in safe food and farmers seeking stable markets for their crops joined together in economic partnerships.” DeMuth said that the idea then spread to Europe and in the mid-1980s crossed the pond to the United States. The first CSA program in the United States was located in South Egremont, MA in 1985, and created by Robyn Van En during her second season at Indian Line Farm. She got the idea from a Swiss friend.