Wondering what is a CSA? How does community supported agriculture (CSA) work? What are the benefits of CSA? And what do you get in a community supported agriculture share? Get all of your questions on CSAs answered in this guide to CSA benefits, tips, and healthy CSA recipes.
Imagine a box stuffed with fresh produce, delivered to your home or a local hot spot. Your eyes first catch the fuzzy-skinned peaches perfect for your classic peach pie. And the aromatic flesh of the ripe, green honeydew melons tempts you to make a perfect sorbet. And then you spy shiny, firm, bell peppers which will surely make your famous stuffed peppers pop with a certain je ne se quoi. As an added bonus, the box of produce can be traced to a specific farm in your community. While many of us don’t think past the aisle when we make a dash to the supermarket, it’s something we should spend more time pondering for the health of our food system. Fortunately, you don’t need to live on a farm to be able to get local food from farmers, and know exactly where your food comes from. Thanks to CSA (community supported agriculture; sometimes called community shared agriculture), you can get farm-fresh produce on a regular basis, allowing you to support your local food system and reap all the health and flavor rewards at the same time.
What is a CSA?
Local farmers markets offer a means to provide fresh local produce, while allowing you to support your local farm community. But what if you can’t make it to a farmer’s market at their set time and place? Sure, they’re fun to visit, but they aren’t always convenient. Consider this alternative: Rather than go to the farmers market, the farmers market comes to you; they deliver the crops they harvest to your front door or nearby pickup location through a CSA. This means instead of hunting down those locally grown juicy scarlet strawberries or that crisp organic spinach, these bad boys are already home, waiting for you to turn them into your dinner salad.
How Does a CSA Work?
Farmers run and operate CSA programs through their farms, and members of the CSA pay for a share of produce they receive on a routine basis, typically weekly or bimonthly in the form of a box of produce. This provides farmers with the financial support needed in these harsh economic times, as the farming occupation has become practically obsolete, at about 2% of the US population. Many farms provide newsletters with their CSA packages, which offer ideas for experimenting with new foods and recipes. The specific produce CSA members receive is relative to the location, seasons and growing conditions, which makes the foods taste their best, contain the most nutrients, and cost the least. The concept of CSA isn’t entirely new, though its popularity has increased in recent years in the US. Although we first started seeing CSA beginning here in the 1980s, the concept stemmed from Switzerland and Japan in the 1960s, where consumers who wanted safe foods decided to partner with farmers who wanted a stable market for their crops. Hundreds of CSAs exist today, many in the east coast, but popularity is rising in the west coast. In California—especially Southern California—the seasons and harvests last longer, making more foods available to us year round.
Many CSAs will offer pick up sites as an alternative to home delivery, often at a slightly lower cost to members. Signing up for a CSA is easy. A great starting place is www.localharvest.org/csa, where over 5 million people a year currently get local food from their community. Next, check out the website for CSA Aware (at www.csaware.com) to see how CSAs can be even more convenient, personalized, and flexible. If you want a specific item to arrive a week later, your farm can adjust that for you.
Why Go Local?
Let’s brush up on the benefits of local food for a moment. First off, locally grown food is fresher, so it tastes better. The locally grown fruits and vegetables are allowed to ripen, as opposed to commercial methods which means produce is picked immature to survive the long, harsh voyage of the shipping process. So, often times, the produce sold in super markets have not been given the appropriate time to ripen and therefore allow the food’s nutrients to be at their peak value.
Local and organic food is most preferable, but if forced to chose, you might opt to consider local over organic. Frequently, the organic produce that we find in our local supermarkets has traveled cross-country or cross-continentally, and the environmental damage done may dwarf the benefit of buying organic to begin with. Local eating is simply better for the environment, as it supports your local food system, promotes biodiversity, and reduces the miles food has to travel. Additionally, many farms who are not certified organic may use organic cultivation styles, such as avoidance of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, cover crops, and composting. You can explore the farm’s agricultural methods before signing up for your CSA. But do consider a CSA as a way to “go green” on multiple levels.
Expand Your Horizons with a CSA
The surprise factor of the CSA is fun. Your box arrives and you can’t wait to see what they sent you; it’s like receiving a present from your local farmer! This may be challenging at first, because you don’t have the control of always being able to plan weekly meals in advance. But it’s exciting to be given the ingredients and then make use of them and design your menu. Think of it like a cooking show challenge! What delicious meals can you design with these new ingredients given to you? It stretches you out of your comfort zone to try new things you may have never tried, from fresh dill to rhubarb. With a large volume of produce arriving all at once, it means you may even practice how to preserve items, such as through canning, freezing and drying, if it is more than you can eat at one time.
Top 10 CSA Recipes
Check out my favorite plant-based CSA recipes perfect for featuring seasonal produce:
Written by Ladan Tehrani, dietetic intern with Sharon Palmer, MSFS, RDN
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