Enjoy nature's bounty, week by week: community supported agriculture brings stability to the farm and fresh organic produce to consumers - includes resource list and tips on how to get started

Vegetarian Times, Jan, 1995 by Faith Schantz

Most CSA farmers try to cater to shareholders by issuing surveys each year to determine what the majority wan (not "weeks and weeks of fennel," Agnew found). But because they are limited to what can be grown in their region, farmers can't satisfy all the desires of shareholders--who inevitably disagree about what the ideal share would contain. CSAs with farm-based distribution, in which shareholders come to pick up their food, often have sharing tables where beet-haters can swap their beets for the kale-haters' kale, but it's more difficult for neighborhood delivery CSAs to arrange for such exchanges.

Paying for food they didn't want, didn't know how to eat or didn't have time to prepare leads shareholders to drop out, says Melody Newcombe, editor of the CSA newsletter The Harvest Times, whose 650 subscribers are mainly farmers. Shoppers at grocery stores "don't give a second thought ... to the complexities of the food system," she says. When you're relying on a CSA, however, you're at the mercy of the weather, pests and the local growing season. "That's the reality of real food," Newcombe says.

But one person's dissatisfaction is another's pleasure. For Jim Moore, director of a Montessori school in Santa Cruz and a Homeless Garden CSA board member, adapting to "real food" has its advantages. Although the supermarket offers more choices, he says, most people buy a small number of familiar items and eat a fairly limited diet. Being forced to use CSA food in his vegetarian cooking, says Moore, brought out a creative side he didn't know he had.

Moore is in good company in his decision that the inevitable inconveniences of a CSA are more than outweighed by its benefits. Jean-Pierre Schwartz, president of Van En's networking and resource organization CSA of North America, based in Washington, D.C., links the growth of the CSA movement to increasing exposure of the hidden costs of conventional farming. As more farmers are looking to get off "the chemical treadmill," Van En says, and more consumers connect good food with better health, "people are going to be lined up to be part of CSA." Shareholder Holly Rockwell sounds a quieter but equally heartfelt note. While global problems seem overwhelming and insoluble, membership in a CSA is "a small, right thing."

RELATED ARTICLE: FINDING OR STATIMG A CSA PROGRAM

If you'd like to be a member of a CSA this spring, winter is the time to find or start one. Farmers need to know how many shareholders want to be involved and what their preferences are so that seeds can be ordered in time for early spring planting.

* First, find out whether there is a CSA in your area that you can join. (See the Resource List on p. 65 for organizations that provide this information.

* If there are none, propose the idea to your vegetarian society, environmental action group, garden club, PTO or PTA, church or any other group with whom you share common interests. Then plan a public meeting and publicize the CSA to inform others in your community.