Buy into Bounty, Join a CSA

Supermarkets leave the impression that every fruit and vegetable should be available year-round. However, in order to accommodate this demand, they stock produce that has been shipped cross-country if not from other continents. Eliminating the need for long-distance shipping, buying locally preserves both flavor and nutrients. You've been promising your mother to eat your vegetables since you were a child. So stop pushing the peas around your plate and check out a local CSA.

What is a CSA?

A Community Supported Agriculture operation (CSA) is a farm that allows local residents to buy shares of each season's harvest. Before the growing season commences, new members contract with a CSA agreeing to pay a set amount in exchange for a weekly share of the farm's produce. Memberships, which usually range from $300 to $600, help pay farm costs like seeds, equipment maintenance and labor, and provide CSAs with a "guaranteed market," allowing farmers to concentrate their efforts on a successful harvest rather than negotiate with buyers and advertising. Produce is then either delivered or picked up each week.

This may sound like an investment, but a 1998 study in the Review of Agricultural Economics shows membership costs for CSA organic produce amount to the same as purchasing non-organic produce retail, notes Sarah Johnston, executive director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York.

Take Casey Farm for instance. Located in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, Casey Farm is USDA certified organic. Here, a full CSA share feeds three to six people with 10 to 30 pounds of produce a week for 21 weeks and costs $660. A single share feeds one to three people with six to 20 pounds of produce a week and costs $420. Harvest size varies as the farm copes with changing crops, weather and season.

"We train people to eat more seasonally," says Mike Hutchison, manager of Casey Farm. "You can't get strawberries on our farm in August." And unlike your home garden which can lack variety, CSA operations provide a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and herbs throughout the growing season. "Our growing season runs from the first week of June to the end of October," says Hutchison. "In Spring, members get fruits and vegetables like strawberries, greens, beets and carrots. Next come vegetables like garden peas, zucchini and broccoli. By Fall we have pumpkins, squash and root vegetables."